The Godforsaken Realms Godforsaken Realm Saga
by CellCloneBot
Summary: Chapter Preview: Conkenu trains in a mysterious place. Bulma learns from Vegeta what motivates a warrior, and a worker from the Red Ribbon Army, now working for Capsule Corp, Trent, talks to Bulma.
1. Yamacha's Birth Thanks Yamacha!

The Godforsaken Realm1: Yamcha's Past  
By: Cory Kennedy  
  
733 AD  
  
At night, inside a small house, a husband and his pregnant   
wife discussed about disturbing things. In a warrior suit, Icicil   
placed his hand on his wife. He relaxed his right hand on her left   
shoulder. She looked him in the young eyes; too young to see the   
horrors of war, but his eyes were not too young to cause a war once   
they could no longer see the eyes of his own father.   
  
"Icicil, I don't want you to abandon us. I feel that the   
child will be born tonight. The city is full of chaos. You must not   
leave." This wife, Snowda said. Icicil took his hand off his wife   
and walked to the door. He picked up his sword that tilted against   
the wall. When he removed the sword, the contour of handle left in   
a clean outline of a semicircle. The blade scraped across the floor.   
  
"I have to leave because I have a responsibility for what my   
father has caused. I have tried to send messengers to inform him of   
my own free will to be here, but he can not accept the love I have for   
you. I must leave to protect his village, which my father is holding   
accountable for abducting me away from him." Icicil looked down to see   
the abrasions he had engraved into the floor. He hoisted the sword off   
the ground and above his head. Icicil stabs the ceiling and his hand   
drew away from the handle. He wrenched the sword out and walked   
through the door. "Bye."  
  
Icicil closed the front gate of the high bush hedge. Hands   
cuffed his hand, and he looked up through the lively vines bloomed   
with white flowers to Snowda. The barbs of the vine cut her velvety   
hand, and the blood traveled without resistance over her tidy skin.   
Icicil tore a white strip of clothing from the bottom of his coat, and   
enfolded her hand with the shred. She mimed some words, but Icicil did   
not hear the gentle words. He cogitated nothing over what she lipped.   
  
"I will always love you, but you knew."  
  
When he released her hands, Snowda's thoughts raced. "You're lying;   
you aren't going to the war."  
  
"I have seen the future in my visions, and indeed, I will go to help   
the warriors to fight the war that my father started. I am only going to   
be fighting a week in the war, but there is another war on its way. I'm   
sorry that I would not have a chance to see our child."   
  
Snowda looked at the band around her hand. "Is that all you care   
about? Your visions? Are they real? Our love is real, our child is real.   
You are a man of fate, but will you ever become a real man? As a wife I   
will love my husband; but as a mother, most importantly, I must protect my   
twine of image. Of course, my husband, now the newborn interweaver, will   
impregnate my line with knots because not I a knot to bond with knots. In   
consideration, I did tie the knot with my husband, the warrior. He's a knot,   
and I'm not a knot. Oh dear, my husband will make warriors of all my sons."  
  
Snowda rocked on her chair near the fireplace. She pondered about the   
infant. "I will not allow a child of mine to be a warrior; not forced to be   
one." She promised the unborn. She packed a bag. The door knocked and   
a face recongized my Snowda entered.  
  
"I have come here to tell you that it is not safe to be here, you have   
to come with me. How did you already have your bags pack?" He asked.   
Snowda got up and smiled at him. He got confused.   
  
"Please take me to my grandfather's house, Yamcha. I don't want to   
disobey my husband whom I love so dearly, but I have decided for my child   
will be come a warrior." Snowda opened the door and they walked out of the   
house. "He will be raised by a friend who lives in my grandfather's house.   
Come on, we must go now."  
  
Three hours later they arrived. She went into labour half an hour   
before arriving. "Just bring me inside. My friend will know what to do."   
Snowda said. Yamcha brought Snowda into the house. He placed her on the   
couch.   
  
"Hello is anyone here? I have someone here who needs help. Snowda,   
doesn't Icicil know about this place?" Yamcha asked. Snowda shook her head.   
A quick shadow flashed by Yamcha's face. He moved back out of the way of the   
object. He looked around the room. He heard the front door open; it banged   
open and close.   
  
"Wrong move."   
  
The voice let out a mighty war cry and knocked Yamcha onto the floor.   
"Pwar. Please help, I have gone into labour." Snowda yelled. Pwar a small   
flying blue and gray cat when over to her.   
  
Snowda opened her eyes to a sun filled room. Over top her, Pwar and   
Yamcha smiled down on her with Yamcha holding a baby boy. "Yamcha." Snowda   
said. Yamcha gave the baby to Snowda.   
  
"What you aren't naming the baby Yamcha are you?" Yamcha asked. She   
hands the baby over to Pwar.   
  
"No, it is up to Pwar what his name will be." Snowda said. Pwar's eyes   
widen.   
  
"What are you saying?" Pwar asked. Snowda got up and felt into Yamcha's   
arms.   
  
"Pwar, you must look after this baby. I have to leave before it gets harder   
to leave." Yamcha picked up Snowda. "Discipline him to be a warrior. Love   
him as your own. Yamcha, bring me back home to Icicil."   
  
  
734 AD  
  
The door opened and Icicil came inside looking at his wife. She greeted   
him with a smile from a chair near a window that the maid placed there to let   
Snowda see how the garden was doing.  
  
"What is the matter, my dear?" Icicil asked. Snowda looked up at him.   
  
"In order to protect our son, I have sent him away to be raised. I am very sorry,   
but I saw it in the best interest to the child." She explained. Icicil started   
laughing. "What is your problem, Icicil? Aren't you hurt?"  
  
Icicil held Snowda's hand and pulled her out of the chair to kiss her. "You are   
divine, my sweet. I saw your actions in a vision that you would do this." Icicil   
rubbed Snowda's shoulders. He ran out of the house. Snowda followed him.   
Before he wanted to stop, Snowda forced him to stop.   
  
"What are you doing?" Snowda inquired. Icicil laughed and griped her hand.   
He pulled her to the bar where all the other soldiers celebrated the end of the  
war. He jumped on a table and got everyone's focus.   
  
"My visions, they have come true. The greatest fight ever, is going to be taken   
place in the future." Icicil shouted. Everyone gathered around him. "We all know   
my visions; I am the gate keeper of this realm. A realm has convinced the Elders   
to allow them the chance to prove themselves efficient to enter Earth's realm. I   
don't know when, but I will know once the time approaches. The son I have   
predicted will be a great warrior. He will be one of the deciding factors in the out   
come of the battle."   
  
The warriors partied all night, but Icicil left the party. Not many people knew he  
wasn't there, because many believed he fought in the war too, but both times his  
stand-in took his place.  
  
In the morning, Icicil looked over the mountain areas. The sun raised low   
behind the horizon. The wind blew his cape. He pulled a key out of underneath his   
shirt. It reflected the light into Icicil eyes. He looked up to the red sky.   
  
"Why do I hurt? My responsibility is to full fill my visions as the gate keeper of the   
realm of Earth." He looked up to the heavens as if they cared. He raised his voice.   
"If I am so full filled, why do I feel so empty? I feel alone." 


	2. Welcome, Conkenu! Both Of Them! The Fi...

The Passing of Gate Keepers  
By: Cory Kennedy  
  
35 years later..  
  
  
Snowda remained the hospital bed giving labour to her second child.   
Her husband and father of the child, Icicil kept out of the room of the   
city hospital to loosen his pale brown sports suit his wife picked out  
for him to wear at the hospital in the city he didn't much care for as with  
any city. He spent his time wondering the hallways thinking about his  
visions and allowed for his double to comfort Snowda. Icicil had realized  
she felt more relaxed around the double since Icicil had been traveling  
more to discuss the future with people had known, or would have had to  
know because of the predictions.   
  
He walked into the deserted cafeteria, removed his jacket and threw   
it on the long barren table on where he opted to sit. A janitor rolled   
behind him with a mop, a bucket of dirty blue cleaning solution, over  
to Icicil and sat down across from him.   
  
"Good morning, sir," the janitor greeted and reached his open wrinkled  
hand over the table. Icicil grabbed the hand and shook, soon afterwards   
the janitor released before another shake. "Do you mind if I smoke?"  
  
Without a response, the janitor dug into his chest pocket on his blue  
jump suit.   
  
"Hold on," Icicil interrupted. The janitor dropped the visible half  
of the pack into his pocket where it still remained distinguished. He  
pulled out a gold thin container from his inside pocket of his brown  
suit and shot it over table. The janitor picked it up and opened the   
packet possessing eight posh cigars. Icicil waved his hand over the  
table. The janitor held it in his mouth and lit it. The taste   
instantaneously caught the janitor to take the cigar out of his mouth  
to waft breezy light smoke. "It's almost as good as air wouldn't  
you have to agree. So, what's your name, guest?"  
  
"My name is Conkenu Vsthree. It was given to me to honour some  
relative I have never seen before in my life, since she lives in a   
countryside manor, called the Pleasant House, which compensates  
for its wealthy lifestyle with a splendid inn called the Trick of Tales.   
I'm usually very presumptuous, so you look like a person who could  
have afforded a season there and come back home to better stuff.  
I wish I had a chance to go there for a winter season.   
The Trick of Tales only furnishes to a single buyer, at least to the   
standards of people willing to pay five hundred-thousand zeni. I   
can only suggest the reason for the owners to ask for one customer  
only is that the owners would have enjoyed the company of people  
any less rich.   
You know, I would have gone to a family reunion, but I don't have   
a close enough relationship with my namesake. I do wish to have  
a chance to go see her, because I never saw her. She is rich and  
well known, yet there isn't much opportunity getting pictures of   
shut-ins like her."  
  
"I am rich. Not as rich as I was or could have wanted." Icicil said.  
Icicil pointed at a crest red circle emblem on is jacket, about the  
size of a fist, with two stylish R's filling the space and overlapping.   
"My father is a very rich man, and when I was arranged to be wed -  
I wonder how young I was? I am for certain that the ceremony was  
planned a few years after I was dedicated to a sixteen year old   
princess-"  
  
"Sixteen? A young wife you were going to marry."  
  
"I was younger than sixteen. No more interruptions, I am going  
to finish this story. Recommencing, I was upset with the promise   
and had spent a week on the estate's visitor mansion, which was  
fallow of guests of outside sort to secure the estate from visitors.   
It is atypical to keep guest out of the visitor mansion and boring, but   
during a war is the best time for spies and assassins to take refuge.  
Honestly, having spies in the estate during frickles and long arms is  
too lively. We could not have allowed them to die or cause them any   
harm if they were under our shield. They would have had every right  
to run around gathering information with the certainty that we would  
have an untouched messenger deliver the package to whomever. It's  
an honourable thing to do and we had paid the taxes a year before   
we made the no visitors during wartimes a custom.  
Now during this battle, my father wanted me out of the guest   
mansion; and I came by his order for his gift. The gift is useless now,   
but I can claim legal ownership of the Red Ribbon Army."  
  
Then Conkenu Vsthree coughed in a devil of a smoke mist,   
which was not like choking on a poorman's cigarette, or a rich man's  
cigar, but a smoke that could have made commoners walking by to  
envy Mr. Vsthree's struggle. This struggle did not seem to distract  
Icicil as he removed his checkbook. "Mr. Vsthree, I want you to have  
this check for one million zeni."   
  
------------   
  
Icicil sat down with his jacket on the plastic chair coupled to his own  
and nailed to the wall and a patience's clipboard with their file flipped  
to its blank side so that he could write a letter, and it read:  
  
"Conkenu,  
  
Though I am given the right to decide the next gate keeper to   
whomever fit, and having many recommendations of a proper suitor not   
of them with your name, I decided choose you as the next successor.   
I have seen one possible path of your future, which you plant firm in  
the ground settling down in a small village where you catch fish for   
food instead of sport, and make decorative signs out of wood for  
doorways. It's awfully safe and mundane for one such as yourself,  
so it is in a good interest of one person more than myself that you  
craft yourself a more exciting lifestyle and disregard the expectations  
of motherhood on children. There is a much better time for that for  
that to be honest.   
I will not be alive to see you're new lifestyle, but be strong because   
it will not be an easy route to follow."  
  
He stopped the flow of ink of his gold plated pen to look over to the  
origin of the familiar sound of rolling wheels. Mr. Vsthree rolled his  
bucket, this time containing cleaner water, and rested the mop in  
the bucket next to the weakly occupied chair. "You haven't left yet,"  
Icicil stated. "What can I do for you, Mr. Vsthree?"  
  
"You have done more than too much for me, Sir." He replied, and  
he pointed to the clipboard Icicil held. "But, you have to follow the   
rules of the hospital and not touch patent notes for the doctors and  
nurses."  
  
"Let's see, I was just writing a note on the back" Icicil flipped the   
patent notes over and read over them. He reattached the papers   
to the board and passed them to Mr. Vsthree. "I'm sorry, I didn't   
think the patent would have minded. I read that the patent   
admitted himself in here suffering from amnesia."  
  
"This will be our little secret, sir." Mr. Vsthree declared with putting  
the papers in his pocket. The papers were safe from anyone finding  
them with the wrinkled jump suit obscuring the flat folds made by the  
papers that only Icicil saw. He declined into the chair for a time, and   
lapsed the time pondering if he should have made another note. He   
decided that the note best served him as a collection of his thoughts  
before he revealed the news to his child. He was still unsure about  
that decision, but had deep indication. What if Mr. Vsthree thought  
the note was for himself, which Icicil knew he would have once he  
read the message. The janitor's interpretation would have later  
connotation.   
  
  
-------------------------  
  
The labour ended. It was an eight hour delivery, and damages  
happened to Snowda, which she snubbed for her reminding stay  
of earlier the next morning when she would die.   
  
"Come here, Icicil! Come look at our beautiful child." Snowda held   
on the baby. Icicil touched his wife's face. Her face appeared pale  
and loose, and moisturized from the tears, and none of them spared  
for herself. Icicil sat on the cushioned chair next to the bed, and tried  
not to writhe. "A special child, huh? Not of woman born."  
  
"What do you mean?" Icicil questioned but came to the right   
conclusion. He whispered to the head nurse, and he gather the   
other nurses outside to let Icicil speak in private. "I have to say that  
from the day I saw you, that I thought you were perfect. I reasoned   
you would have stay the same, and love you the same way when I  
first saw you. But, I sit by your side now, and know that if on the day  
that I first saw you and I saw a woman just as you are today, that I   
the young girl wouldn't be in my mind. For you see, over your life time  
you respected and loved yourself with such personal insight that you  
would have improved everyday. You taught me to respect myself,  
and I hope that my affection for you grew as you did."   
  
  
  
  
5 years later….  
  
Conkenu rushed through the forest with more quickness than   
previous days with the sun rising on his fifth birthday. It was double  
digits from here. He hopped over bushes in a naive way by stopping  
short of a bush and jumping off with his two feet side by side, which  
was easy for him to avoid tripping on his white cloak. He ran parallel  
to the high hedges enclosing the property, and jumped in his unusual  
way. He attempted a backflip to clear the length of the bush, but failed  
with a face full of branches that tumbled him head first into the snow.  
Conkenu stirred recklessly to his feet and shook the snow out of his  
hair. The snow underneath him soon gave way and he dropped well  
below the snow to hide his body.  
  
The sun sparkled over the low spaces of the mountains. Conkenu   
waited on the shoveled veranda to dry his covered clothes before   
entering the residents. He sat on the seven-five centimeter frame of  
the pond made from concrete with various stones as trimming. He  
also sat below a steep wooden roof that kept the snow out of the   
water to preserve the condition for the tropical fish. Conkenu dangled  
his feet over the water and watched the colourful fish. His favourite  
one stood out the most, because of his monotone colour while all others  
had at least three different colours. The favourite fish with a dark yellow  
coating, like Conkenu's bristly hair, swam under Conkenu's feet.   
"I bet you tasted the best too."  
  
Conkenu saw crumbs fall in the pool, and he looked around for the   
source. She, the source, noticed him formerly and started the   
greeting before he saw her. "Good morning, Conkenu. And happy   
birthday."  
  
"A great morning, Gneiss." Conkenu emphasized to the head maid  
of the large mansion, constructed a few years after the war. Gneiss   
removed his cape and placed it on a support beam of the pond's  
roof on a dowel that Conkenu couldn't have got without jumping. He   
would have hung the cloak on the peg but did not want break the  
no jumping rule of the property. "Where's father?"  
  
"He's still in bed, but he will wake up soon. You know, that you   
typically arrive a bit later in the morning." She answered then pulled  
out two long pieces of paper from the front pouch of the apron. Gneiss   
walked over to Conkenu and displayed the tickets to the young master.   
"Those are two tickets to an early showing of latest Clash of The   
Shadow Ninjas title."  
  
He threw his arms up without hesitation that showed his level of  
excitement when the force dipped him off balance and he would have  
waited longer to dry if Gneiss did not catch him as soon as she did.  
She held him with one hand grabbing a mass of the black jersey with  
enough strength to sustain the too close for comfort distance. She   
decided what she would have to do. Gneiss kicked off her shoes and   
with a slow stable movement raised either foot up to remove the sock.   
After the act of pretty poise, she stepped into the water to get the free   
hand under the head. As an urge that only Conkenu could have   
explained, he gambled the success of the maid and reached behind   
his head into the warm water. Gneiss then stabilized Conkenu without   
knowing that the jeopardized the rescue. She was then able to get under   
Conkenu and lift him out of the pond. When Conkenu touched the ground   
he illicitly dropped the golden fish into his pocket with some water that   
went into his over-saturated sleeve that absorb well. Gneiss got out  
of the pond also with some difficulties with exiting because her drenched  
brown skirt would not have moved up enough so that she can throw  
her legs over the barrier.   
  
"Conkenu, you seem dry enough." She said once she got out of the   
pond; she had to sit on the bank and spin herself around on the abrasive  
surface. "Why don't you go wake up your father. I am convinced that  
he would not have liked to make you wait on your birthday, even if you  
are impulsive of the time you arrive."  
  
"I'm sorry for the trouble." Conkenu said to the feet of Gneiss, who  
are much more tolerant for him he thought, more than her face as  
he thought. He did not a response from the feet, and he played with  
his hands to keep his mind off his raising eyes until he could see   
her smiling like only a teacher or sage does.   
  
  
"Don't apologize, I did what I had to do. You must do the same."   
She explained to him as she walked to Conkenu and kneeled in front   
of him. Her stunning hands slipped into the young master's red pant   
pocket and cupped a fish and some water when coming out. The fish   
flicked on her palm and splashed the water to trickle small drops out of   
her hand. "I do have a better motive to help you than why you always   
steal this fish. It belongs in the water, Conkenu." 


	3. The First Footstep of the Fisher's Quest...

Chapter 3: The First Footstep of the Fisher's Quest   
  
  
Conkenu removed his boots and retired them on a clean fluffy   
mat beside two white doors that made a tall thin arch. This corner   
of the mansion posed as a time consuming crossroad for him that  
left much to be debated about in his steps; the hallway to the east   
and straight from the door preceded, with the inner wall lined with   
arms and weapons around the world with different production  
dates, to the basement, then to the gymnasium where his father   
would have taught him drunken boxing demonstrated in Clash of   
The Shadow Ninjas. To the south hallway, the path lit with spaced   
tall rectangles where the morning sun entering the windows and   
blushed through the long lucid light red drapes that came at the end   
of the more natural scenic path with wide stairs at the end of the hall   
that curved in a semi circle up to the next level to a door to the left   
where Conkenu finger painted portraits of fish (his favourite animal   
and food, though he recently understood they were the same thing).   
In this time, he went in a direction that she, the mother and wife,   
would have to take a lesser importance to what Conkenu was   
going to do and what the mother and wife questioned. Probably   
Conkenu thought that he could have pleased both Icicil and Snowda,   
but for the first time, (and that one time enough was to put the   
wishes of a mother at an eager hiatus) Conkenu traveled to the east   
on his own harmony. He went with Icicil once to see the gym, but   
only that time and this time alone has he seen the basement. He   
budged to the end of the hall, but every step had its own motive   
that's intention was far off from getting to the basement. His father,   
what lingered in Yamacha and Conkenu, gave the penchant for   
both of them to become warriors. The blood line of the warrior   
was not as strong with a mindless desire as the Saiya-jins left their   
offsprings, but nevertheless the potential was undeniable. Now and   
then, this desire offered by Icicil was a mistake.   
The first portion of the eight motive trek, which some are not at all   
interesting or sensible even for an inquisitive finger painter at five   
years old, started as he walked into a single incandescent light bulb   
room. He never explored all five rooms along this hallway. The one   
he stood in was a small storage room clustered with boxes and   
some visible articles on organized shelves. He looked around   
the scene and took a single strap hand bag and loaded three  
objects that he liked. The first was a steel flute, next joined by  
a poem called "The Three Fish", which he selected for an  
illustration on the other side of the words, and a silver tiara with an  
emerald placed in the middle.   
The next mentionable stop before the final conclusion of this   
journey had him chatting (with two doors to check, until he stepped  
down to the basement) to a male servant by the name of Preston.  
Conkenu had asked about the appearance of the gymnasium since  
the last time, and got the response by the young euphoric spar   
partner was the new water dispenser all the way to the new "vital"   
padding on the floors; but, Conkenu could have only recalled   
"the new physician is very skilled with taking care of broken   
bones".   
  
After the many tasks along the hall, He stood a moment at the top   
of the stairs leading down to the dark basement, with only a fraction  
of light crawling down the stairsways from behind him. Conkenu  
looked at the two stone walls at the top of the stairs, he searched  
carefully for a light switch. His eyes glaced over a string hanging  
from the three meter ceiling with a red ball tied to the end of the string.   
This string dropped far, but on closer inspection, Conkenu realized   
the string dropped slightly less from being wrapped a few times   
around the bulb, but if undangled it wouldn't have made up the   
distance for him to reach, atleast not while standing. So he bent   
his knees and jumped. A voice from up the stairs called his name,   
and Conkenu forgot about the string he held and when the string   
was stretched the bulb broke. The glass shards fell over Conkenu   
who had taken landed awkwardly on the back of his head. Icicil walked   
down the stairs, and picked up the dazed child.   
  
Icicil carried Conkenu into his room and laid him on the bed.   
"Conkenu, I must tell you something before we go." Conkenu lifted  
his eyelids to look at the blurred vision of his father sitting on the  
bench next to the window. His head ached from turning to see  
Icicil who looked liked a black wraith backed in a blinding light.  
Conkenu turned his head straight and watched the wide wooden  
ceiling fan rotate its blades as well as circle itself among the  
wall. The white paint in the room bursted with pulses of red from  
the pain he felt. "The pain, it's not the fall, but the sign."  
  
"Where are we going?" Conkenu managed to ask though he   
found his voice echoing and loud. Icicil stood up from his chair  
and walked to the bed. He reached over the large bed to the  
middle where Conkenu rested and felt his head. An enormous   
burden left Conkenu, and Icicil placed his hand on Conkenu's  
chest where the pain materialized in the form of a well fashioned   
thin glass key held by a green rare and precious chain. Icicil  
moved to the bed's end, and looked away as Conkenu inspected   
the key and chain. The key sat lifeless in his left hand, and the  
handle dispensed the light into flecked flakes, which tapped back  
and forth on his palm. Never had he sensed something so brittle,  
and he was couldn't relate it to any action. The colours and   
expertise in the key contrasted his grubby finger painting, and  
the chain was full, but thin with two crossing lines of made of  
many metal strings overlapping. His right hand went back behind  
his neck and pulled it over his hair that caught and bounded   
back to the long golden cluster spikes. He jumped up to the  
bottom of the bed, with his hands held out with the key and  
coiled chain, and Icicil bounded off the bed by this abrupt   
disturbance. He stroked one of his slim eyebrows, and looked  
down on Conkenu who gestured his out and together. "I have  
seen enough, father. It's yours again."  
  
"But, you will be needing it," Icicil said and got comfortable  
back in his last spot, "besides, I would not have you ill-  
equiped for where you could go today. Destiny is like the  
direction the wind is blowing, you see, and we don't have  
much choice from where it is coming. Something it will  
travel with us, or push us a certain way, but we do have a  
choice where we want to be. And if the place you are  
heading is against destiny, then it is in your best interest  
to carry that key. This key can give you the duty to help  
people by guiding them to protect this world from others  
with a key similar to yours. Under the supervision of the  
Elders of the Realms, you will be facing odds like never  
before in this battle. There will be six other realms, some  
of them will only be protecting themselves, and I do fear  
much that other realms are instructed by powerful emotions  
and will be against you. Gneiss will be waiting for you, and  
you can begin your training at Yunzabitt. You will enter the  
God's Realm in seven years, so return back in five years."  
  
"Why aren't you coming?" Conkenu asked.  
  
"I'm leaving where, I belong. I want to discard something   
with you before you go. Please, get Oldfield in here. He's in  
the next room." Icicil responded to Conkenu, and he walked  
out of the room to fetch a bulter. He sat on a bed awaiting  
for Oldfield. The door opened and Oldfield closed the door  
behind him. "Oldfield, need you to remove the spear inside  
of me."   
The history of the spear inside of Icicil had no face to place  
on who pierced the weapon in, but it wasn't a friend who had  
well wishes for him. In the time of war, when Icicil was a child,  
an assassin was able to infiltrate the protections of the estate.  
It probably happened in an hour, where the assassin creeped  
into Icicil's room, and stabbed a ki spear in from the top of  
his right shoulder down to the leg. A young apprentice at the  
time, named Oldfield, was left with saving him. A veteran   
sorcerer could have removed the spear, but Oldfield didn't   
have the training and had to think fast, and by a legendary   
source of luck, he saved Icicil. The spear remained, and in   
a mistake never replicated, the spear made Icicil stronger.  
The idea of removing it was impossible without killing the  
host, because the magic still had been made by a lesser  
sorcerer. But, Icicil stood up and anticipated for Oldfield  
to take it out him. "You do know this is going to kill you,   
sir?" Oldfield asked and rubbed together his furrowed  
hands. Icicil nodded his head, and that was all that the  
old sorcerer needed to understand. "It will take a while   
minimize the pain, and I will mail the spear to Conkenu  
when they arrive at a hotel."  
  
---------------  
  
That day, Conkenu grabbed what he needed in a suitcase,  
and before nightfall, Gniess and he arrived at a small town  
leaving halfway left to Yunzabitt. The vintage car, drove up  
to a hotel. Gneiss turned around to look at Conkenu who  
sat quietly in the backseat for the whole trip. "Conkenu, I  
know your mad at not going to the theater, but Icicil got me  
to pack one extra baggage in the trunk." She said, and   
got out of the car. A hotel attendant, takes the keys and  
a tip from Gneiss, and drives the car to the underground  
parking lot.   
"Welcome," the doorman says with a bow, returned by  
Conkenu with a superfluous curtsy to show up the doorman  
who was opening the glass door with golden handles, "to  
the finest hotel of this fine city. Your bags will be carried to  
your room."  
They walked up to main desk and attented to by a clean  
cut mildly built man wearing an ironed dress shirt and a   
black tie. He clicked on some keys to set up the computer  
and looked up with a wide white smile. "What room do  
you desire?" the booker asked to Gneiss, but Conkenu  
crawled his way up onto the desk. He rested a while with  
a vast breath before he was sweeped off the table by  
Gneiss. She arms onto the table and rested head in her  
hand and drifted off, which annoyed the booker who tapped  
his index fingers on the table.   
"We will take the penthouse, if the hotel is fine enough,   
and if not second-rate, we will be needing two rooms   
side by side." She said in a muffled voice and got off  
of the desk and fixed her brown long hair. "I think these  
were in the instructions, but," she inclined on the desk  
and looked at Conkenu, "I can't remember your father's  
orders too well. It was written for me, but I have seem to  
have not the message in my pocket."  
  
Gniess and Conkenu settled in with familiarity in the   
luxurious penthouse, and sat outdoors with different treats  
and sweetened beverages on about the round white table   
and under the parasol. The sun had started its slump, and   
the two found comfort for the first time today, physical in   
nature. "You don't look too excited about this trip," she   
pointed out Conkenu who kept most words to himself since  
leaving, "so do you want to continue? Your mother   
hired me before you were born to follow your wishes, not  
Icicil's orders."   
  
Conkenu grabbed a bag at the side of his chair, and   
untangled a string to amplify the opening. He plunged   
his hand and returned out with the flute he seized. Gniess  
bent over to see what Conkenu screened underneath  
the table. He held it firmly and in the wrong fingers at   
the stops and put it up to his mouth. He didn't play any  
thing, so he put the flute on the table. Conkenu looked  
at her. "Is that flute my mothers?"  
  
  
"Actually," she replied taking the flute, and pressed down  
some keys while she held it in the correct manner, "the flute  
was mine, and I played it to you even before you were a  
baby. She and I used to blend my flute playing and her  
painting. Snowda would paint pictures of what you would  
look like, and she was off all the time. She would draw   
a boy with brown hair with tan skin, and your mother never  
decided if you should have brown eyes like your father,  
or green eyes like her causing her to paint one eye of   
either colour. She would have been shocked if she saw  
that came true."   
  
"I wish I could paint with my mother." Conkenu said. A  
lofty song grabbed his attention, and he watched her   
play the flute. He did not think about his home or the  
city with the theater, the only two places he could recall,  
but he yearned for a place he had never visited. His   
mind, as a certain mother would have wanted, filled up  
a realm with more green, trails of streams, and an outdoor  
stage for musicians and actors. He stopped dreaming.  
"Gniess, I want to become a warrior."   
  
"Then we will go to the mountains in three days." She  
said. 


	4. The Package Arrives, Time To Check Out! ...

Chapter 4: The Package Arrives, Time To Check Out!  
Part One: The First Day, The First Friend Or Foe?  
  
Conkenu hauled a light sheet over his face to cover  
the sun that dropped through the window and into his  
room. Gneiss opened the door to the room, and   
walked over to his bed. "Conkenu, wake up, we are  
going to have breakfast in the lobby diner in an hour,  
and you haven't yet stirred." She said and added in  
a single hand prod. She had a knack for waking up  
people, but it didn't help in waking Conkenu, who did  
not recently had a fluency to wake up near people,   
because he never suffered these rules. He reacted  
to the nudge in a way neither of them anticipated;   
he rolled to the opposite side of the bed, until he   
fell off the bed, then he rolled under the bed with the   
blanket shuffling underneath also. She got on all  
fours on the sterile waxed wood floor, and   
inspected under the bed to see he buried himself in   
the sheet. "Conkenu, precious, you cannot stay in   
bed any longer. You need to get ready for   
breakfast. Warriors don't sleep in on the journey."   
  
"You're no warrior, why are you up then?"   
Conkenu injected as he crested his eyes pass  
the blanket. He saw Gneiss, and he saw her   
hand closest to the bed presenting an egg. He   
got the wrong message. "Toss it under here."  
  
"It's not cooked." She said. "I think we should   
come to a compromise."   
  
"Haven't we?" Conkenu asked as he freed his  
hand from the cocoon and reached for the egg.  
She held the egg under-hand and directed it   
closer to him. When he touched the egg, he   
could feel that she would try something nasty  
to pull him out of the bed, so he jolted back. The  
action came too late because Conkenu was   
sliding on the floor on his way out from the bed.   
Instead of what he thought would have happened,   
she pushed against the egg that pushed against  
his whole body with the force he used to get away  
from her, and was gliding along the floor to the  
other side of the bed. He tied to stop it, but his  
movement was caught by his cocoon again, and  
the floor was very well waxed. Gneiss followed  
over the bed, and bounced off the bed to a low   
feet first slide heading off Conkenu as he started   
to hopelessly slip across the room. She twisted  
her body towards Conkenu and stopped with   
her back inclining on the wall. He followed, and  
she caught him. Gneiss scooped him up and   
sat him on her leg. The egg also came rolling  
intact, and she picked it up with her right hand  
to show Conkenu who rested on her left leg.   
"I'm ready to bargain. How did you not break  
the egg? "  
  
"You can say," she informed to Conkenu as  
she shook the egg at him, "that I wake up very,  
very early. All of your family trains this way, but  
only your father and I have mastered the training  
with eggs. He taught me once I was hired so  
that I could teach you how to train with eggs. It's  
the art of flow, elegance, and focus. What we  
have to bargain, is if you can get the egg from  
me, you can continue sleeping. But, if you can't  
get it, then you will have breakfast with me. Do   
you agree? Great."   
  
Gneiss threw the egg into her mouth before   
Conkenu could jump. He jumped for where it  
used to be in her right hand, but all he could do  
on the trip was look as Gneiss gulped the egg  
whole. Conkenu slid for a while, and looked at  
her with a blank face. Gneiss got up and looked  
back at Conkenu.   
  
"I expect for you to be ready to go down stairs  
in five minutes," she said.  
  
Conkenu walked out of his room after ten   
minutes, and he was not later than Gneiss   
sincerely meant for him to be ready. She even   
left enough time to dispatch him back into the   
room with clothes she would have picked out for   
him, but in a fluke, Conkenu didn't clash the   
clothes that she packed for him. His own clothes   
that he packed was still at home, sitting in his   
room leaking out marmalade onto his clothes. He   
never remembered packing any of the clothes   
in his luggage, and never thought he would have   
put arrangements of clothes into plastic bags  
before packing them. Nevertheless, he stood   
outside his door as she straightened his clothes.  
She tucked his yellow button shirt into his pink  
pants, and fixed the collar. She sat back on her  
feet, and looked at Conkenu. "I wish that you  
would have let me once try to do something   
with your hair."  
  
They walked out of the elevator and greeted   
by personnel, and the administrator in the   
company blue suit escorted Conkenu and  
Gneiss to their table in the diner and to get  
a word in with the guests. "My name is   
Virg Veramon, the owner of the hotel. May   
I bring you to your table."   
  
"Would you be joining us, Mr. Veramon?"   
Gneiss offered implying educated manners   
to be careful with handling uninvited guest   
from accepting. Only a few people could   
master or rarely best her execution of this   
social interaction to offer something but   
playing with the prose to limit the response  
of the latent recipient.   
  
"Thank you, but I have work to do. But, will  
you be good enough to take my niece and   
eat with her?" He said, inverting the social  
skill shown by Gneiss to her own disadvantage.  
She glanced over at Conkenu who remained   
obscured to the adults until he caught her   
fleeting look and shook his head. Though   
she had just been scorched by this, she   
hands facing up and spread them. Conkenu  
responded by looking away and flicking down   
both hands at her.   
  
"Oh, that will be great." She forcefully said,  
and looked at Conkenu who made an 'M' with  
his two hands leaving them shoulder height,   
bending his elbows, and dropped them down.   
She flung down both hands at him and   
eased her arms to her sides. They walked   
up a few wooden stairs, and came upon the  
enclosed dining area with a large window at  
the end of the rectangle showing the scene   
outside, where the hotel was built, to a lower  
forest and to distant misty mountain tops.   
Conkenu got wide eyed when looking at   
the sun top the mountains filling the dinning  
area with a natural dim light. In the excitement  
of the quest, he ran towards the window. He  
ran under a table obstructing the closing path  
to the window, and causing the couple at the  
table to jump off of their chairs. Then, he jumped  
on a table partly enclosed by a three side chair  
arrangement against the window serving a party  
of four business women. They removed the   
plates before he landed, and he jumped again  
in between two women sitting against the window.  
Gneiss walked and rubbed her left elbow with   
her hand. He looked at Gneiss, and pointed  
to the mountains.  
  
"Is this where we are going?" He spoke   
pausing between every second word. She  
pointed north.   
  
"I know that many epic adventure travel  
east, and sometimes west," she said   
with a quite voice not to make it easy on  
the eavesdroppers, "but we are heading   
north."  
  
Conkenu dropped feet first under the   
table, and came out from the table holding  
the white table sheet and dragging it behind  
him wiping his tears with it. Conkenu hardly  
made it out from the table, when the sheet   
was no longer moving with him, so he gave   
it a tug, and the sheet when underneath the  
plates and glasses without disturbing them and   
continued with him as he blew his noise. He   
walked to Gneiss. "I wanta go east."  
  
Virg got Conkenu and Gneiss settled at   
an empty booth, and had Conkenu's back   
towards the window to not upset him. A girl in  
a pink old western dress, and white cowboy hat  
walked up to her uncle. Her hat spilt out plump   
long thread of brown coiled hair, and she took  
it off once Virg put his hand on her back and   
she liberated the rest of her splendidly ordered  
hair. "This is my seven year old niece, Kita   
Kallie. And these are Gneiss and Conkenu.   
Well, I have to be leaving now, good day."   
  
Kita sat next to Conkenu, and put her hat  
on the empty row. She looked out off the   
window, and turned back to the table. "I just  
hate those mountains, they're not just as   
risky as they used to be. Hey, I saw what you  
did with the table cloth, can I try it on this table?  
No wait, you do it."  
  
"Kita, we have to remember our manners   
at the table. There is a certain etiquette with,"   
she hiccupped and put her hands to her mouth.  
The egg she had swallowed regurgitated and   
she held it in her hand as she tried not to look  
at the egg with her eyes on the kids who were   
standing on the seat cushion slanting forward   
to look at the egg. Kita poked it with her finger.  
  
"So what are you going to name the baby?"   
Kita asked as she sat back and rested her   
head on her hands and let out a sigh of   
happiness. "Pregnancy doesn't seem that  
painful as my mother told me."  
  
"What are you saying?" Gneiss asked   
putting the egg away in her front shirt pocket.   
Kita reached over and removed the egg from  
the pocket, and looked down at Gneiss.  
  
"What are you doing? What type of mother  
are you? You need to sit on the egg so it   
can hatch to become a baby!" She yelled,   
and had the egg taken away from her by   
Conkenu. He showed it to Gneiss who   
caught on by now, not by her own accord.   
  
"You wanted me to eat this!" Conkenu said,  
and put the egg underneath him, but turned back  
standing on the cushion to say more. "Well, if you   
can't be a good mother, then I'll be the mother."   
  
Conkenu sat on it, and a crunch was heard then  
the screams of two children.   
  
It took an hour, and a dozen chickens to coach  
Conkenu and Kita from under his bed. Kita came  
first, and left with her parents who were staying   
at the hotel, and Conkenu needed something more.  
"It could have been a human egg!" Conkenu said.  
  
"I'm going to tell you were babies come from."   
Gneiss started and started again once Conkenu  
came from under the bed.  
  
"Ok, so pelicans deliver babies. That's why   
people like fish so much, because pelicans have  
fish breath." Conkenu concluded. He looked down  
and got off the bed and started to run to catch up   
to Kita to show what he learnt. He turned around   
for one last question. "How are babies made."  
  
"Magic." Gneiss answered, and Conkenu   
nodded.  
  
--------------------  
  
Conkenu entered the garden inside of the   
second story of the building, right over the   
dinning area. By an synthetic water fall,   
Kita looked out the window on the mountains  
to the east. Clouds dimmed the sunlight. She   
turned around to catch him walking up from   
behind her. She pointed to him. "Watch your   
step, I saw what you did to that baby."   
  
"Baby come from magic, and they aren't  
thrown up by woman. They come from   
pelicans. So there, you don't have to fear  
me." Conkenu explained holding his waist,  
nodding his head as if he could explain it, and  
dropping his eyelids a few times to show how  
smug he was in his findings. Conkenu took  
one step forward intimidating Kita to remove  
her hat and put up her fists. "What's this all  
about?"  
  
"I've never seen this happen." Kita stated,   
and stuck her tongue at him. He raised his  
fist at her, even though she was bigger, he   
could not have took that insult. "I see, you  
have come to finish off any witnesses."   
  
The clouds spoiled the sun, dipped drops,  
then poured heavy rain. At the moment, the   
most prevalent sound drummed on the down   
slanted glass. Gneiss walked in the garden  
and halted when seeing the conflict. She   
held her red umbrella upside down, with   
her two hands against her chest. Gneiss   
started to run towards Conkenu, who stood  
at the end of the room with Kita approaching  
him. Before Kita's kick connected, Gneiss  
lunged at Conkenu with the handle of the   
umbrella. The handle hit him in the leg   
causing him to go down on his right knee  
and dodging the kick. Gneiss lied on the   
floor, with her arm reached out with the   
umbrella. She assisted him again with a  
dive towards his left leg making him do the  
forward splits and eluding lower round   
house kick from Kita. Gneiss stood up   
and aimed the umbrella at Kita. Conkenu   
rolled backwards and looked at Gneiss   
with her subtle face without blinking looking  
at Kita who arose from her stance. "I have  
never experienced having a child, but when  
you hear from a woman that a baby is magic,  
then you better believe it."   
  
She looked at Conkenu. "Play nice with   
Kita. I'll be back in an hour, the hotel isn't  
going to deliver any food here that I   
requested in this weather."  
  
Gneiss walked away, and out of the   
garden. Kita looked out of the window,   
"I'm sorry Conkenu. I would like for us to   
be friends.  
  
"Me too," Conkenu said turning his head  
to the left and down. An object caught his  
eyes from the bottom left corner of the glass  
and flew not so close to the building. He   
pointed at the object, and both of them   
watched as the pelican flew in the waning   
rain carrying a white cloth bag in its mouth.   
A few more pelicans flew by and carried   
the same thing. "Do you know what I'm   
thinking?"  
  
"If we can catch that bird," she expanded,  
"then we can give the baby to Gneiss!"  
  
--------------------  
  
Gneiss opened the door from the hotel   
kitchen to a small deck going over the   
cliff with a glass down slope roof. A man  
in a chef outfit sat down on a chair and   
watched the river.   
"I was wondering if you could make an   
exception to my request for a special delivery   
of salmon?" Gneiss asked.   
"I'm sorry," the chef replied, "but in this   
weather, I can't send the pelicans off on any  
more runs to the market across the river. It's  
too dangerous to lose one of them to fatigue  
considering how hard it is to train them."  
  
Gneiss walked out of the hotel, and left   
Conkenu alone, something that she did not  
want to do. She walked down the stairs to  
the sidewalk where her car was parked. She  
got into the driver's seat, and buckled her   
seat belt, before turning on the engine and  
driving to the market. 


	5. The Package Arrives, Time To Check Out! ...

Chapter 4: The Package Arrives, Time To Check Out!  
Part Two: Gneiss' Trip To Market, And Maternity No Fly Zone! (Day 2)  
  
  
  
It was early morning, and Gneiss sat on a chair   
near the guardrail of the penthouse and looked at  
the mountains. She had forgot the salmon, but   
Conkenu did not seem to mind being caught up   
with Kita as they planned and rehearsed the way  
they could have intercepted the baby carried by   
a pelican. The tiled ashen rooftop of the   
penthouse was darken brown from the   
downpour, and the railing that Gneiss hung her   
arms and head above dampened her long brown  
hair that collapsed against it. "What's going to   
happen today?"  
  
Yesterday...  
  
Gneiss cruised in her car, and looked for the   
bridge that would get her to the otherside of the   
river so she could go to the town market. The   
town across the river from the hotel was much   
larger than the other, as highlighted for the   
purpose of Gneiss journey, it had a market that   
the village where they stayed used, plus the   
town had many other enticements with a movie   
theater, a baseball stadium for a professional   
team, and a two level mall. She caught the   
bridge closest to the hotel and crossed over the   
green and rusted lane that was two meters the   
width of her car. She now was driving north up   
the river, and she looked up at the town she was   
staying. The travel time was close to an hour,   
the time she said it would have taken her, but she  
did not conceived of the bridge being as far   
away and thought of it as she had when   
processing to the hotel to check in at the front   
desk. The car drove up against a sidewalk and   
stopped. She carefully stepped out of the car   
onto the sidewalk to avoid the puddle that   
dwelled under the driver's side. Gneiss turned   
back into the car to get her purse before   
shutting the door. She seized the attention a man   
with a black leather jacket propping a brick wall   
with his hand and talking to four other males in   
shabby clothes. The man, whose attention   
located on Gneiss's struggle to keep her shoes   
dry for anyone but Conkenu, approached her as   
he removed his jacket presenting his white muscle   
shirt. He placed the jacket on the puddle. "Here   
you go madam. Call me Lars." He spoke up and   
sent her a hand that she took and got out of the car.   
Lars closed the car door with but a click made, and   
Gneiss furnished curtsy and a relaxed smile. He   
smiled backed and bent down to pick up his jacket   
and returned with a short broad knife. "Now, give   
me your money, babe."  
  
She hopped back until she settled standing   
straight up near the back bumper. She stared at  
him with her eyebrows bunched and a slightly opened   
mouth. "It's Gneiss!" She said in an irritated voice.   
The group laughed. Lars took a step forward and   
spread his hands.   
  
"Sure, when we get the money." He responded,   
and looked at his men who withdrew from their   
lethargic stances to join the leader.   
  
"G-n-e-i-s-s," she spelt out to end the confusion, "but   
I would be surprise if any of you could spell correctly   
what you thought I said."  
  
With the knife in his right hand, Lars thrush at Gneiss   
who threw her back against the trunk of the car and   
reached over to the back door with her left hand. Lars   
turned around with a meter and a half separating the   
two fighters. She opened the door slightly, and   
prepared as he ran at her again. With her body staying   
in contact with the back door, she rolled against the car   
and opened the door as the knife smashed through the   
end of the window breaking the glass that flew pass   
Gneiss. She got her back away from the front door and   
slapped the back door on his elbow causing him to let   
go of the knife. Her next move as she stood close to Lars   
as he faced the car trying to open the door with his left   
hand was crossing her right foot behind the left leg and   
kicking him in the side of his right leg. He fell to his knees,   
and she twisted around right on her left foot to raise the   
other up to kick him in the head. That was the end of the   
fight for Lars, but his company remained standing, with   
not enough time to react to her defense, and they were   
not going to take anything lightly. They lined up in   
formation to confront the woman who paid more   
attention to her long skirt that stained with blood and  
she licked her hand to moisturize the small but   
attractive blot. When she busied herself with cleaning,  
the remaining four guys removed their grungy clothes   
and started to expose their pristine black tuxedos, which  
detained Gneiss's attention. Her skirt dropped down back  
to her ankles. "Where did you get those suits?" Gneiss   
interrogated the group of men mending their tuxedos as  
dutiful as Gneiss once did with her dress not too long   
ago. A man to the outside of the line jumped high into the  
air into a crouched flip. She evaded with a two handed   
back spring and watched as the man drop kicked the   
cement cracking the sidewalk bringing up dust and bits  
of stone covering his black dress shoes which anyone  
could have missed in his previous attire. "Nice suits.   
How did you afford them?" Gneiss asked to the guy   
who got off the ground. Before the answer, she got   
close enough to him to place her left foot behind his   
right heel following up with a two handed push to make  
him off balance. With his right leg off the ground, she  
crouched down and sweep backwards with her right  
foot and stretched to take the other leg from behind  
him. As the man laid there, she hopped on to his   
chest knocking the wind out of him. One man came   
from behind her, and caught her off guard taking   
advantage of the situation, he lifted her up and threw   
her over her car. She smashed against a shaded   
window of a tour bus shattering the glass. The bus   
halted with shrieking tires. Gneiss twirled off the   
window and landed on the ground down on a knee   
and a foot. She looked up; the men jumped over   
her car. The three formed a triangle with a single  
man taking the lead. A swoosh came, and they   
looked over to an average height man with black  
hair and a good build come out of the bus with   
his baseball uniform on belonging to the number  
one team the Titans.   
"It's the King Crimson." A tuxedo mentioned.   
Though, it was just a nickname given to him by   
the pitchers of the professional league suitable  
for this homerun slugger. His real name was   
Yamacha, and he had a double face about his   
fans calling him a hero. He knew what a real   
hero was, and he wanted to be a hero, even if  
it was for a game. "So you think you are a   
fighter? I have to warn you, because I am no   
baseball player."  
The challenger crossed his hands to press   
down two buttons on his cuffs. The tuxedo   
cleaned up, and his shoes dug a few   
centimeters into the ground. Gneiss backed  
to the bus followed by a narrow steady cracking   
of the street. The man took a step forward and  
slid on his right foot across the pavement raising  
his left leg to kick. Yamcha vanished and   
reappeared beside Gneiss taking her left hand  
with his right to raise her head down over his   
head and placing her feet first on the ground to  
the left of him. Yamcha looked at the man who  
thought he had made contact with the kick who  
hadn't stopped yet and started to split the metal  
of the side of the bus then out the other end.   
The last unconscious trouble maker lounged   
face down in the impact he had made in a car  
on the other side of the bus. The condition of  
bus was deemed unsafe to drive with two rows  
on gone and connected only by the roof as   
Yamacha looked through the bus towards the   
end of the wreckage, to the man who gathered   
much attention and fellow players who were in   
the path getting up to check their injuries, which   
were more shock than physical. Yamacha   
walked inside the bus to the man who attacked   
him. Before clearing the bus, the fallen baseball  
players sat up and looked at Yamacha. "So you   
do more than beat up the players?" One of them  
said to him, as he did not turn his attention to   
the comment that remarked on King Crimson's  
latest fine putting him way under his original   
highest paid player position. This did not bug  
him as he looked over the lifeless man man. With  
a current running across the tuxedo, the suit   
dematerialized back into the watch. Yamacha   
lifted up the limp arm, and removed the watch   
into his pocket.   
"Everyone, the game today is going to be   
cancelled." The coach said with a grim face  
as he told his players who had picked up their  
fallen allies and formed a mass on the side  
of the bus where Yamacha was.   
  
Gneiss sat at a table in a small narrow   
restaurant near the window on a small   
table for two that overlooked the destruction  
outside. A waitress wearing a downy white   
apron with a canvas of spills and stains walked  
from the other end to the only client in the room.  
Gneiss or the waitress kept attention on each other  
very long as the waitress place the coffee pot on  
the table and joined her in watching the cops escorted  
the Penguin Patrol (not the only animal   
based gang) in the crowd into the squad cars.   
"I hope the crowd doesn't come into this place."  
The waitress remarked and walked away without  
filling or taking the coffee pot with her.  
A ring from the door sounded, and Yamacha   
slit in and rushed on to a stool at the counter. He  
sat with his back towards the window, and   
kept his face down and a hand on his hat to   
adjust it. His uniform was covered by a brown  
smoking coat. "Can I help you?" The waitress  
asked. So, he ordered a tea, a package of  
sugar, and a container of cream. After the   
waitress handed this to him, she leaned on  
the counter. "You shouldn't be too mysterious,  
Yamacha. Don't worry, I wouldn't tell. I really   
don't want any more people here."  
  
Gneiss overheard. "Snowda did mention to  
take care of her son entailing this task more   
than a footnote." Gneiss recollected the day   
that when she had become from a nurse looking   
after faceless, and sickly people, who some had  
no hope, to look after a child of a caring mother.   
The patient was no longer colourless and faceless,  
but was as bright as Easter egg, and one more   
would not have unexpected, yet more sudden.   
She picked up her coffee, with a its saucer and  
spoon and sat next to Yamacha. "Thank you   
for helping me."  
"No problem, I, uh..." he passively guarded his  
tea with his eyes as Gneiss slit it over to herself.  
She would have done the same for Conkenu   
once she thought he was old enough for a hot   
beverage that can be harmful. She skimmed  
her hand to the right across the waxy counter  
to put her hand face down to the right of the cream   
container. Yamacha saw what she was doing   
was more of a gesture as she had flipped her   
hand and the cream soared over the cup. Once  
over, her left index nail pieced through the paper lid.   
She caught the pouring container, and brought  
it down. The spoon was spun around the cup to   
mix the tea and cream, and placed to the left. "I   
think I can add my own sugar."  
Yamacha halted his reaching hand for the   
package of sugar, as the spoon somersaulted  
up in the air and landed with the head down   
covering the sugar. They grabbed for the   
spoon, but Gneiss got her thumb on the head   
and twisted the tail towards Yamacha. She then  
flipped the spoon face up with the sugar cradled  
in the curve. The sugar dispatched onto the tail,  
then she pressed her thumb down to set the   
package up that met with an incisive long hair   
pin. The sugar sprinkled into the water and after  
stirring, Gneiss tested the warmth.   
"It's adequate." Gneiss remarked and gave   
the tea back to Yamacha. She promptly realized  
before letting go of the tea that Yamacha politely  
flushed making no eye contact and unnoticed   
to the tea that split on to Yamcha's overcoat  
that produced a high pitched scream. The first  
reaction of Gneiss in her least experiences in   
stains was to get some hot water on the jacket   
and rub detergent on it. The jacket came off   
with a quick apology, and rushed to a deep  
metal sink behind the counter. Water from   
a kettle poured onto it, and Gneiss waited   
prepared, to the best of any one's ability that is  
less than the bachelor's experience of Yamacha,  
with a soap dispenser. The water had a strange,  
in an unexpected way, reaction to the coat. The   
coffee spill did the same thing as the water and  
another high pitched sounded with an extra   
corollary as a puff of smoke. This puff of smoke  
surrounded the upper half of Gneiss and her hand  
waved away the cough inducting smog. From the  
clearing, a blue and grey flying cat with a much more  
glowing colour than normal, held her tail up to   
her reddish grey face and blew on the tip. This was   
the formal introduction that Gneiss received with   
this cat named Pwar; the friend and unofficial manager  
of Yamacha.   
While the humans had conversations, the flying   
cat sulked and ate meatballs from a plate that channeled   
her inadvertent bad treatment by Gneiss. "Yamacha,  
you shouldn't feed a cat human food." Gneiss infused  
to her more curious interrogation of Yamacha. The   
remark brought the sulking up to the surface as Pwar  
lifted the plate off the table to place on her chair, and   
sat with her full back against the target and obstructed  
from view by Yamacha. "I didn't mean to offend your  
cat."  
Yamacha bursted out in song:  
  
"Lady Yellow Stamper   
with a fillet in a hamper  
Dying to finish the course;  
Don't think I am that rude  
if I tell you that it's cat food  
Not even fit for a horse!"  
(King Crimson, "Cat Food")  
  
"Pwar hates it when I sing." Yamacha said.   
  
The sun rays darted through Gniess' drink  
and projected in a multifaceted shadow as she   
held the glass still on her leg and stopped   
reflecting on last day. "I have many questions  
yet to ask Yamacha," she tilted the glass and  
played with the shadow then resumed her   
routine of turning around to look inside to   
Conkenu and Kita would have kept to their  
own routine of Kita catching Conkenu's foot   
as he ran at her and throwing him over her  
onto the bed. The light, stomach, and hotel  
restaurant agreed in harmony, and time had  
come for breakfast. The chair emptied and  
Gniess made for the bedroom. The glass  
door opened, and thieved the attention of  
Conkenu and Kita in the middle of a practise  
to be oblivious to the imminent collision, for  
a moment. They clawed their way with the  
blanket on the bed, and looked at the humorless  
stare of grown up eyes. "We are going down   
for breakfast now."  
  
"Why can't I wear a dress?" Conkenu asked  
Gniess at the breakfast table set up in the   
garden. The guest of honor, Kita, had   
suggested this question for Conkenu to   
stage while they had met after dressing up   
for breakfast and in a casual look, had   
compared Kita's tropical sea blue dress,  
which was inspired with cowboy western as   
usual, to Conkenu's mismatched blue   
khakis and black work shirt. Knowing that  
the up coming orange juice had nothing   
to add to this conversation, Gniess painfully  
reshallowed. Conkenu swigged some   
milk from the straw. "You don't want to  
say no."  
"Well, I must say no, then."  
"You would look just adorable in my  
old dresses." Kita held her hands together  
and smiled.   
"Did you hear that?"   
"Yes, but we will ask your father" Gniess   
accepted. "Oh, I'm sorry, we can't do that."  
"My father!" Conkenu said. "I would   
like to speck to him."  
The excuse did not come for Gniess,  
but a sudden postponement happened   
when Kita looked at her wrist watch. From  
where she was sitting, she saw a   
pelican fly across the window. Inspired  
by vision, today was going to be the day  
that she and her friend would have   
revealed the truth.  
  
-----------------------------  
  
Conkenu and Kita stood on the platform  
outside the garden on the second floor  
overlooking the cliff. The platform had   
meter fence around it and was the roof  
of the platform below it that the chef   
used to bring the peligans in and sort  
the contents of the cloth parcel. Conkenu  
tied the twisted blanket around his waist  
and the schemer adjusted the lifeline, which  
was a few rolled up bed sheets about eight  
meters in length that secured on the railing  
behind them as they faced the way Conkenu  
would have jumped; the large window that  
slanted down from the bottom of the third  
floor, to the bottom of the first floor, which  
revealed the outside from the garden and  
the restaurant. Time checked correct for  
the plot to steal the bird around 4'o clock  
as the pelican flies close to the window  
and lands on the lower platform until   
the chief comes ten minutes later. The  
bird appeared and approached the window,  
at this time, they were ready with Conkenu   
touching the farther railing, and Kita with  
her back to the railing, closest to the bird,  
waiting to give Conkenu a lauch. He started  
to run, which was different from the practice   
as there was less room to run, and stepped  
on Kita bonded hands and she threw him,  
which was different than the practice as   
there was much more room to elevate him.  
About twice the height he got from this  
powerful young girl, and grabbed the bird  
underneath his right arm. The bob then   
swung back, and with enough rope, Conkenu's  
hair brushed against the bottom edge of the  
lower platform and hit his head against the  
floor. A whip in the air resonated behind   
Kita then she plunged to the ground to dodge  
the railing that tore from the rusted nails that  
connected it to the stone. All three sides of  
the railing falled. Conkenu watched as he   
hung from the lower platform by a hand  
and acted with promptness to kick a leg  
and twisted his foot to locked between   
two poles. Pulling down on him, he   
remained passive to the railing that   
swayed and so induced him. His arms dropped  
down, but he did not gamble losing the bag  
that he supposed a baby was in there; a very  
quiet baby in that Conkenu granted, until he  
looked down into a bag full of eggs. Kita had  
managed a way down to the lower deck, and  
tried to pull him up by the leg. She was half   
way there when she slipped and the impact  
on the railing caused this one start to give,  
but only in one side. Kita seized his leg   
once again. She reclined on the pavement   
with his foot in two hands. The railing inclined  
towards Conkenu, and gave way sliding down  
to his leg, but jammed by his free leg. "Let me  
drop and I'll throw the bag to you."  
"No, I wouldn't let you drop."  
"You were right, babies start as eggs."  
The grip on Conkenu relented, and he fell.   
Before he could throw the eggs up, he saw  
he was no longer succumbing to gravity.   
"I'm flying." Conkenu said. "I'm choking."  
Conkenu reached back to feel a hand.   
Kita had jumped and caught up. She flew  
up slowly with decreasing acceleration, and   
Conkenu passed out.  
  
When Conkenu established his conscious,  
he lay in his bed with Kit resting on top the  
covers facing him with her eyes closed.   
"Kita?"  
She opened her eyes, and blinked.   
"Nice, he's awake." 


	6. The Package Arrives, Time To Check Out! ...

Chapter 4: The Package Arrives, Time To Check Out!  
Part Three: A Package For Conkenu, and New Friends Depart. (Day 3)  
  
  
  
A bell endorsed a deeper repetition that woke  
the young invigorated adventurer to be, who  
rolled out of bed, hauling the blanket and   
layers to the ground. Conkenu walked to the  
bedroom door, and opened the door until  
he would have had to take a step out of the  
room. The main door of the penthouse opened,  
with greetings of Gneiss, and a bell person; the  
package had arrived.   
The package carried was a long brown box  
about the length of the youth male's arm that  
passed it over to Gneiss after she signed for  
it. It lied in her hand and over her shoulder,  
and stayed firm as she closed the door.   
"Conkenu," Gneiss called out, "the parcel  
has arrived, and we will be heading out   
as soon as our business is done here."  
They met eyes from where they stood when  
the door was answered, and the commitment  
was made by Conkenu to step inside the room.  
"And, is there a note from father?"  
"Too many to note, but far too less to explain  
the meaning I know. This is not the right   
moment to read these notes for the time is  
approaching too soon for us to scan these   
and time has not approached for you to   
interpret them. Now, go back into the bed  
and collect your belongings."  
The last return to the room sanctioned a  
long look to later recall of better days, as   
this child's own room with less importance  
to pack his things and wonder what had  
arrived in the package explained by an  
unknown note from Icicil. The sheets   
greedily abused by the bed-mongering  
wrapped in a hectic swell waited on the  
floor. This pile, not too much tidier than  
it was then, had padded on the mattress   
to comfort and aid in his overly thought  
important training in jumping with Kita,  
which he would have to say good bye  
to also of her sophistication not at all  
complicated to appreciate especially over  
emulating it, and her smile had become  
as warm as his covers as well to the   
over indulgent boy as overlooked at   
this moment. There was not enough   
attention in his bouncing eyes to notice  
her beam in the time glee, but this smile-  
monger would have countless bad times   
to bring up memories, inspirations, and   
all that has little substance to exist anymore.  
  
After the swift pack up, Gneiss escorted   
the young master a door one floor below  
where they had stayed, and knocked   
two times. An old deep lethargic voice assured  
the callers of a deferral of the next response.  
Meanwhile, Gneiss put a hand on Conkenu  
and pointed down the dull clean white carpet  
hallway. "Where I am pointing; I'll be using the   
service phone to get our possessions to the   
car. You have a farewell with your akin friend."  
  
She left. The door open, Virg Veramon   
with curiosity on this face as he looked for  
the caller. Bending down his neck on his   
tall shoulders, he saw this small caller.   
"Please come in Conkenu," he said.   
  
Left at a two door entrance with   
wooden frames and tall square windows  
fully covered by long vastly rippled thin   
inside cherry drapes, Conkenu tapped  
on the door like the first few dropped sleet  
on a window. "Kita," he said. His name  
was replied with enthusiasm, and one of  
the curtains pulled back with no outside  
observance of the stage hand. He looked  
up through the glass and saw bits of her  
luxurious room, which he would consider  
normal haven't seen anything but riches.  
The treasure in the room, of a slight view,  
exposed a shining wooden floor, and   
at the end of the room right under a   
long window was her bed with toy stuff   
animals neatly arranged, as if the bed  
was just for looks and enthusing daydreams  
of young girls, but Conkenu had not even  
placed a bed room in his fantasies of a   
place he has never been, with streams,   
a small village, and passion plays that  
many no longer be dreamt along side  
the bed that was included in a possible  
future.   
He stepped into the room. From a   
giggle from above, he attracted his   
attention up. On the ceiling, Kita   
stood down looking up at Conkenu  
with two hands at her knees and her  
dress from there falling down over  
her hands. She descended back down.  
"I'm flying, it's fun." Kita remarked to   
her land-weighted friend. She went   
over to her desk, floating no less, and  
returned with a bag to Conkenu. From  
the bag, she pulled out a pink wide and  
flat lady hat and squashed it down on  
Conkenu's hair. "Here's the dress I   
think you would look good in. And   
a hat for your head, if it does touch  
your any part of your head underneath  
that rowdy hair. It's beautiful."  
On her knees, she held onto the visor  
and pulled down. "I'm going to be   
leaving today, and I'm here to say good  
bye."  
For a moment, the hat was played with  
to cover more of Conkenu's frumentarious   
hair that rooted out wildly from the covering.   
The effort was made. "Well, better." Kita said.  
"I'm sad that we have to stop our fun, but  
another time right, where you will know how  
to reach me. Ask Gneiss. I'll see you until  
you leave the building."  
  
At the lobby, workers departed through  
the front doors and into the trunk of the   
parked car. Gneiss walked over to two   
chairs that Conkenu and Kita sat in talking.   
"Off we go, to new adventures and more   
fashion sense. A blue dress? Sorry, Kita   
that has as much welcomed as you on our   
trip of adventures and so on with dangerous   
terrain of long paths in the rare charted paths,   
and icy mountains." Gneiss said to her mockingly   
as Conkenu stood in her pink dress holding   
Gneiss' hand. "I hope chance will have us   
together, but there are some important   
things ahead of this warrior and the servant."  
  
A look from the car window parked  
at the sidewalk along the slow sloping  
steps of the front entrance scarcely  
focused on a young girl who peered  
back at the car. In the frame of view,  
there were clean steps, a golden railing  
leading up to a clean wide gateway, and  
a girl with no tangible expression on   
her face but an expression of the viewer,  
Conkenu, gave her; she presented to  
the departing pair a smile, if that was   
really how she looked or not. A shock  
stirred Conkenu out of his relatively   
day dream that came from Gneiss  
hand. "Don't let my reminder influence  
you to what I want. Deep inside, I   
want your certain happiness, as would  
your mother have your life. On a just  
note, your father has you earn your  
happiness. I don't know how wise a  
choice would be to earn happiness  
when it is teasing you like a hooked  
worm in the water. Do you know what  
string is cast by: a fisherman who   
would throw a little fish like you back,  
there would be a good lesson or a bad  
one to keep you too frighten to bite  
life again; or does this hook have a  
string, and if not, you have the gift  
without remorse or zealous questions  
if you had not tasted; or a starving   
desirous devil who wants you, so there  
is no more adventures. All of these  
three casts could be with choosing  
Kita. And like the three casts, there   
are the three fish of legend: the half-  
intelligent one, the intelligent one, and  
the stupid one. The story is told that  
the intelligent fish heard distressing   
gossip of fishermen coming to the waters  
of the three fish who had lived peacefully  
there; a peaceful place is called home.   
The intelligent fish knew that he would  
have to leave on a long journey to avoid  
the fishermen; he said 'I will not talk to the  
other fish; they are too afraid to leave  
their homes and would rather die'. And  
with that, the intelligent fish left the   
waters filled with laughter towards him as  
he swam off to the unknown. He knew  
the trip was good for him, but long he  
swam through danger like the fishermen.  
Back at the old waters, the fishermen   
arrived, and the half-intelligent fish  
had come to the insight of his departed  
mate 'Also should I have left, but I was  
too foolish and was afraid to abandon  
my land'. The stupid fish and half-  
intelligent fish were caught, but the   
stupid fish had no insight.   
The intelligent fish, though his   
journey hard, found new waters and  
lived there happy." Gneiss said and  
looked at a length to Kita who was   
imprecise in image. Conkenu pulled  
the glass key from under his hat. "But   
no matter what your mother, your father,   
or I have to say, you must pick your  
own path."  
"And if I want to stay with Kita does  
that mean that there might not be a   
world to live in?"  
"Ah, Conkenu with your questions   
comes so much. I don't know if your  
desire to stay with Kita is what you are   
going to pick. The earth could either   
have a long or short time left if you pick   
Kita, but the moment is coming soon   
that has an answer. What help you can   
bring to safe the earth may be little, so it   
is you who has to decide if that help will  
be asked for by others. Without much   
coincidence, there is one nearby who   
will take the key from you."  
"I want to see this person."   
"And so you will see him." Kita started  
the car and pulled up to the street.   
"Luckily, if my trial of your father's   
wishes were not already seen by him and  
this is not all planned, which I do not doubt,   
another legitimate," Gneiss meditated over   
the word she used for she knew at all times   
it would not stir anything clear from curiosity   
from him. "He is decent to save or to forward  
the dowry. Sorry, I mean gift. A good thing,   
since it is not a far trip from any choice you   
could make after seeing him. I believe we will   
get a chance to find him in exercise to give   
you more to say. As no surprise, he is   
stronger than you, but don't think that giving   
him the key will add to the chances when the   
true purpose is to make sure that the party   
heading on the journey will have access   
without a helping hand from you to enter a   
more pleasant arena." 


	7. Commercial Free Breaking News, the Atien...

Chapter 5: Breaking News, the Atien Civilization?

  The music on the radio of a scarcely plucked acoustic guitar brought about Conkenu a somnolent relaxation and he slept with his head down.  A bump woke him as they got on the bridge heralding to the larger city across the river.  The guitar went double time, louder and stopped with an awful note tracked by high static and a droning tone.  A voice disembarked on the radio.  "Is there any body out there?"  The voice asked.  "Do we have transmission?"  A faint voice settled these questions then a throat cleared with feedback that was followed by a cavernous chuckle.  "Okay, an exclusive diffusion that is about a planet not of this universe.  Am I verbalizing visibly?"

  "Use shorter words." A command appeared in the distance of the broadcast.  Gneiss changed the dial, but each channel had noise with two men consulting each other.  She left it there, being more fretted about missing what others would have heard than curious about the significance.  So, she kept driving. 

  "Sorry, I will begin again. Stucha, how much time do I have?  The time is very well.  Down on a rounded clear region of the home world of the Atienians, Solum in a fresh universe that the people of Earth have not seen; weaved jungle, and cliffs of both directions contained a metropolis of ancient outline with in harmony with the animation of machinery seldom exposed unless consideration, of yet experienced eyes, were taken that this city had to be made by new equipment.  The chronicle of the civilization extended far before time of mortals, and many acknowledged rumours of mortal beings descending from the Demi-God, Ulysses.  The Legend of Ulysses took place when one of the first Atien culture emerged by the power of one of the Goddesses, Juno.  Juno disliked Gamma, her husband, for creating the Atien civilization to worship only him.  Too did the other gods, but they did nothing about it for Ocarina, god of fate, said, 'Only tyranny cities will worship Gamma, democratic will have free wills, and that will worship an Atienian.'

  Juno meditated on the prophesy Ocarina, but had no answers.  With no inspiration, she asked Ocarina how she could make a city to worship the rest of the gods.  He said in return, 'Make the city democratic, and give the Atienian's free will to worship themselves.  Take an Atienian, and reproduce with it, this will the leader of the new city.  They will worship this Demi-God.  The descendant of his Demi-God will resurrect the Gods to be worshipped when a distant offspring of the Demi-God is killed by an inferior outsider.'

  Ulysses, son of Juno and a mortal, created the divine power to kill and reborn the actions of the gods."

  "We're cutting..."

  The radio station returned, and soon an announcer apologized and explained that the views held by the hackers where not of the station or the sponsors.  The music returned after a lengthy commercial break, but Kita turned off the radio.  "This has been a surprising few days with some luck over shadowing the terms set from divine intervention.  Divine intervention means that some higher power in smarts has intended something to happen.  I will stand by what I said when pointed out your father had something to do with this, even the small unusual stuff that I will prevent from neglecting.  I'm sure you have stories to tell that you father will have already heard.  On the day I went to the market in the town we are heading to, I found a person with some relationship to you.  I knew his name, but did not guess he held it.  With this convenience during these hotel stays, with adventures of making friends and learning the mysteries of life in the hotel your father insisted on to follow bit-by-bit clarity for a pattern, that I will be sure to meet you with this relation of yours, which you already know, but I will point out what I did not see at first."  Adjusting the mirror, Gneiss looked to the backseat where Conkenu sat in his booster chair and where a while ago during her monologue, he had doze-off showing some signs of snorting.  She fixed the mirror.  "Maybe the bores have infiltrated the radio again.  Given the peril of capturing a full set of radio broadcasting owned by wealth possessed commercial gratifier, I will not forget this near improbability and their allusion to another universe does have allusion to what Icicil talked about with the gate keeper and adversaries.  Skimming the notes could have concluded this, and if there is some note on Atienians, without much coincidence I do not doubt, when I find this."

  She parked the car.  She looked on the passenger side and parked at the fence near a streetlight.  The street had detached houses on each side.  Paper was messed and dirt got into her nose and made her softly sneezed twice.  She found the paper and stared mindfully to the letter reading out loud the messy printing too hard to skim or read in thought.  It was hard to read in her thoughts because she sneezed and couldn't remind herself of the place.  Drool started trickling from the corner of Conkenu's mouth, and with a grin, he wiped his mouth. 

  Half way through, she heard a knock on her window.  Standing there, a man in a hooded sweater asked her to roll down her window.  "_I mustn't overlook this_," she thought, and rolled down her window.  "_Icicil must have known that radio broadcasting would make me stop, and talk to this guy.  I haven't read anything about the Atienians.  __Opportunity__ has knocked."_

  The man bent down and put his forearm on the window.  "Are you going to buy some," he said, "medicine?"

  "I have some," she put her hand to her nose to stop a sneeze but it never came, and so she cleared her throat, "medicine, but what does yours do?"

  "This medicine will take all of your anxiety away like pot.  Make you brave when you are not.  No pain with this product and this pill will enhance all feats.  Clearer vision comes with this, and I mean, not even temple monks who train day and night, for fifty years have this vision of the streets.  Truth is revealed, and illusion is lifted.  How is your stuff gifted?"

  "Just aches," she pulled a bill out of her purse. "And now I have what you have, sir."

  He took the money, and dropped some _medicine containers into the car.  With a nod, he was gone.  "What luck I have to have no luck, without much coincidence I do not doubt.  This is looking very easy to have someone like Icicil already knowing what will happen.  And the last stroke of luck, I possess extraordinary medicine to minister to all areas of activity.  Such an overall drug is rare to have described with taunts given to the speaker."  She put containers away with the other medicine.  "But, his rhymes, no matter how well formal they are for respect, are too forced and weird.  'Make you brave when you are not' may be true, but he rhymes that line from 'This medicine will take all your anxiety away like pot'?  I would have liked 'This medicine will take all your anxiety away a lot', but he uses 'pot'… oh no.  Remember, you have already said without much coincidence I do not doubt, nothing will happen."_

  A siren goes off behind her, and she looked in the side mirror to see a stout slow moving cop coming.  Frantically, she opened the containers and gulped the contents.  She took other pills from a container and replaced them.  The cop arrived to the opened car window and caught his breath as he panted and removed his cap to wipe his forehead.  "Oh, Mr. Policeman, blue shirt ballet master."  Gneiss merrily said and rubbed her nose.  "Ah, any problems?"

  "Yeah," he adjusted his belt.  "Drug dealing was seen here a few times, we have this guy on record, and I have to search your car for drugs."  

  She handed over the three replenished containers, which never had labels on them.  The policeman took them and looked at them.  "What are these?"

  "New birth control pills, I have two, one for the weekday and one for the weekend."  She explained with some roughness to her voice that was noticeably absent from the first remark to the official.  He picked up the third.

  "And this one?"  

  "That would be for my daughter.  She's in the back, wearing that dress."

  "Birth controls for her age?"

  "I am getting her into a healthy habit."

  "Yeah, I guess some out of town mother wouldn't have the need for drugs.  But, why are you parked out here?" He asked her.  The car door opened, and she got out ready to gather Conkenu from the backseat and head to the police car.  When the policeman touched her arm, she went down and kicked a flat into the back tire.  

  "I just wanted to show you that the back tire was blown out." She boosted her voice to a furious scowl that Conkenu woke up and started to cry.  He tried to help her back up and she pushed him away.  "Now you got my daughter crying.  This day has been horrible.  The back tire gets a flat, some strange man annoys us, and now Conkenu is crying because she can't see the baseball game."

  "Well, madam, I didn't want that for you.  But, you are in luck, because I happen to have extra tickets since I said that I captured Penguin Patrol; I got three tickets for each person in the team I'm in, way up front too.  I only arrested them, so I got some tickets from the Titans who had to get the game today."  He said with a smile.  The cop looked over to Conkenu who wiped his tears.  If he knew or didn't know what had happened, he had real tears to wipe.

  "What happen with the other two members?"

  "Couldn't come, they had to do paper work.  So come along, I am luckily I didn't have to arrest you, because I would have had to miss the game."  He waved as he walked to the cop car.  Gneiss opened up Conkenu's door, and in front of the door, she threw up the pills but she thought she had swallowed one that she couldn't recover; the egg had been misplaced too.  She stamped the pills into the ground, and got Conkenu out of the car.  She wiped his tears and carried him so his head could lie on her shoulders with one arm supporting him, so her other arm could carry the booster seat.  The door was kicked open and they made their way to the patrol car.  

  "Lucky, without much coincidence I do not doubt."  She said, and slowed down. "Conkenu, I will be in need for you to act like my daughter, not by son, or brother, or sister, but daughter.  Can you remember that?"

  Conkenu squeezed her harder.  "Should I call you mother, or mom?"

  "Either way, Conkenu."

  "Will my father be your husband?"

  "Very funny, he's with your mother even now."  She said.  "Sorry, I wish you knew her."

  "Are you here to see King Crimson in action?"  The policeman asked.  

  "The Titans have never lost a game," Gneiss remarked.  A traffic light stopped the patrol car at the corner of the stadium, and sirens went off and he drove through the light.  They were running late, and looking for a parking spot.

  "Oh, the Titans have lost games, once Yamacha gets kicked out of the game for fighting, there is a game.  Most people are betting on that Yamacha gets kicked out of the game now, and so do the opposing team." The cop parked the car and turned off the engine.  "Some teams bring in players, who haven't swung a bat in the spirit of baseball, just to enrage Yamacha to get kicked out.  He has some legal problems with that fighting, I heard, and with all of the payouts, he doesn't keep the most money of any baseball player, but I shouldn't feel pity for him; he is still paid more than years of doing my job." 

  The game was unexciting with no triggers setting off Yamacha, who had restrained himself without discipline but curiosity as he sat the game as the designated hitter on the bench sometimes getting up to get walked but stole each base to get home and on the bench quickly to the radio he sat on his lap.  Even Pwar perked up her ears to each distortions of the radio.  Sitting on the bench, King Crimson sacrificed his usual routine of sleeping, which fans dubbed as deep mediation, to tweak the antenna.  The other team lost, and both teams dispatched to the dresser room.  A cup of beer almost hit Conkenu in his front row seat, as fans started throwing objects onto the field, or in the direction of the field.  "Maybe we should go elsewhere." The cop suggested.  "I know the security guards here, so we can go meet the winning players.  I don't think any fan believes that Yamacha is playing unassisted anymore by the look of this mess."

  At a door in the cement hallway under the seats, a security guard took the hands of the officer.  "How are you Cal?"

  "I'm fine, and it was a decent baseball game, but Yamacha seems to take the fun out of the game with how good he is."  He said, and they had a laugh.  "He's in a league of his own.  By the way, has he exited the change room yet?  I have some guests who would like to see him.  This is Gneiss, and holding her hand is Conkenu, her daughter."

   "Good evening."  The guard took off his hat and nodded.  "I'm sorry, but he has not come through here, and I heard players place him at the dug-out still.  There are a lot of fans angry at him, but he has nothing to worry about compared to sore egos of the fans.  Oh, my mistake, he is coming down the hall now."

  Yamacha with Pwar on his shoulder, walked with the focus on the radio that he held in his hand.  When got to the door, he looked up and saw Gneiss. "Oh, yeah, we met a few days ago."

  "It would be hard to forget me."  Gneiss smiled, and lifted up Conkenu.  "This is Conkenu, and she was amazed by your talent Mr. Yamacha.  You made this first game a memorable performance."  

  "I'm just fooling myself, but I wished the pitchers would start pitching to me.  They just do that so they have more time to annoy me."  Yamacha said.  "I was sort of more interested in the radio to care about banter this game."

  "Cal, do you have any clues on that strange radio disturbance."  The guard asked.  The police were submerged with questions about this radio hacking emerging all around the world.  There was no official word, and silence crept into the hallway.

  "I'm not worried." Yamacha said. "I'm not interested in the message; I have some investment in the tune that was played."  

  He opened the door, that let a dense fog of all the sense past into the hallway.  Some cheering was heard, and some quips about how King Crimson didn't get into a fight this game.  The door closed.  "I'm sorry, that he all you will be seeing of him.  He doesn't talk to the fans anymore.  You should be honored he sprouted those few words, since most people want to twist his words to make it look like he is doing some stupid, like saying he likes that tune and some newspaper will think that he is coming out with a rock album."

  "With his temper and bad actions, a rock star will be a welcoming profession."  The two men laughed.

  Cal dropped them off at the police impounding lot, and got them the keys to the car.  With a farewell, he left.  "So, have you decided Conkenu?"

   "He didn't use his strength of good."  Conkenu commented.  The dimly lighted chain fenced area offered no shelter from the cold coarse winds.  He disappeared from the wind behind her shirt.  "People don't like him because his talents don't have room to be sports, but need to be used to protect people."

  "I agree."  Gneiss settled then remembered her experience.  "He did protect me from the Penguin Patrol.  That deserves respect.  For whatever reason he covets his powers to himself, to make money, Yamacha has an uncomplicated reason to help people; he knows that it is dishonest to play silly games with such power, but he does not have anything more polite to do.  Heroes like him have a dishonest past, so they never know if they could ever repay society for what they have done and sometimes, they sense sometimes in a good motive that society had not paid them for giving them a bad life and driving them to live by crooked means.  This may be the case, but I think if he knew what you have decided then he would have gained some light in his dark past that he would be looked after for once.  That is what I have to say.  In what I didn't want to say may ring true.  He might never want anyone to look after him or anyone to look after.  The stir to my rescue has some possibility to being self-motivated."

  They escaped the cold that still whistled and screeched harder as they entered the car.  The headlights turned on, and the car drove out of the parking lot.  Soon, they would be on foot for a long journey to the northern mountains of Yunzabit including a crossing of the channel that separates the main land from the northern island, but first a drive to the Snowy Forest and a walk.  

thanks to wind (http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=231964) for the suggestion about the formatting.  An extra long chapter for you.


	8. Pleasant House, I’m Conkenu, Meet Conken...

Chapter 6: Pleasant House, I'm Conkenu, Meet Conkenu, Conkenu

  The classic car sped on the rural road pasting similar sceneries of snow-covered prairies with trees of pines and some leafed trees that were bare were caught in the low blue of the night sky that broke the sensation of driving in a loop.  The visibility of the road remained trustworthy in tediousness with no distraction from the frothiest snow sprinkling.  The headlights branched out sometimes to old fallow ruined fences that were splintered and not sturdy.  Gneiss had the radio low on peaceful classical music to keep Conkenu latent.    

  "You should get off the road."  A voice on the radio from the now notorious broadcasting hijack stunt said.  Involuntarily, she let her thoughts drift to the radio and lost control of the car for a while.  She felt the need to respond to the comment, but it responded first. "I can't hear you but go ahead."

  "Then how?"  Gneiss asked.

  "Scripted messages from you know who, Gneiss."  His voice worded with deep monotonous pronunciation.  "You are not experiencing a flashback, but Icicil wants you to know that he had no objective to make you stressed.  Destiny is weird, because I am not reading this script right now, but he must have known that.  I want to tell you that the moment I met him, the day my planet died physically because a fierce beast took her spirit a long time before that, he gave me a choice of dying or a choice of being destined into his plan that you are now in because of me.  Just now, no matter how much suffering you face, you and Conkenu are safe.  Fortune is the gift of knowledge and the burden of control.  I don't even understand this next line back onto his writings all too well."

  "Why do you want me off the road?" She injected.

  "Sorry, I didn't remind you to wear a seat beat."  He said with hesitation, and then laughed.

  From the headlights, a fox emerged two meters ahead of the car, and as soon as Gneiss saw the animal, she swerved off the road into the ditch.  Her body crashed against the passenger door that cracked its hinges and flew off the car.  The transference of energy stopped Gneiss from flying from the car; instead, she hung on to the slanted car for as long as she could until she hear Conkenu's voice that was scared but unscratched then she fell out of the car onto thick snow.  Her faith in Icicil remained, even when she started to black out, she faintly saw a shadow approaching the wreckage. 

  A crack woke her as she felt warmth on her face.  She was in bed under many covers in a large bedroom of dexterously crafted stone. The majority of the light to see a portion of the room came from the nearby fireplace that was dying down then she saw a man come from the dimness to put another log in the fire; it was Conkenu Vsthree who dressed himself in a brown suit.  From putting the first log into the fire, he looked at the bed to see Gneiss sitting up looking at him.  "I'm so glad that you decided to arrive here, but I did wish under better conditions, then who are we to protest meetings of luck?" He said placing the remaining logs into the fire and standing up to walk over to rest on the chair beside the bed.  "First, our meeting at the market place as we both wanted to get supplies and having met the great man named Icicil.  We swapped our stories, and you mention Conkenu, the child that his wife had in tragedy at the hospital.  Well, I had no explanation for why he named his kid after me who was named after a distance relative who lives in Pleasant House, but I was relieved that the letter was explained, and certainly, you were on your way here to receive it.  I little intention to read a letter not meant for me, but the name on the letter did fool me and confuse me.  Oh, I thought he wanted me to go on a dangerous quest that I did not know where I would have to start or end.  Maybe the youngest namesake, who is doing fine but a bit upset, will get more sense out of it.  I do think that this letter must contain old news, but you can now deliver it.  The second encounter was as much luck as the first.  The coincidences surmounted around people who know Icicil I would have to presume.  I was looking for a horse that was not accountable for in the stable, and with the snow, I presumed that it went on the road.  At the road with Constance, having decided she would head north and I would drop south, I would find two welcomed and expected visitors to Pleasant House that have needed my help.  I brought you two back here to warm and heal you up, and the horse that started the search had come back into the stable by herself.  You ladies could have picked a better place to crash luckily.  Conkenu is speaking to others here including her oldest Conkenu, and we are kindled to have a guest like her with her well matters and fashion sense."

  "_Yes, the dress be changed, it's dirty." She muttered to herself.  "How far did we leave the car?"_

  "Not too far off from this property so we can have no problem getting some lodged servants to get the car here for the morning."  He replied.  "I hope that my obligation to Icicil will be a least somewhat paid off, though I know that the deeds I can give him could have never close the doors to help such a man.  The day he gave me the money to enter this place, I decided to invest the money instead in a wise option.  Icicil is a kind hearted man whose daughter has indefinite welcome here."

  Gneiss and Conkenu stayed there for an extra day as the car was being repaired.  The atmosphere of the trip was productive and relaxing, with some tips given to the travelers to Snowy Forest, conversations of adventures of Gneiss that took place before and after meeting Conkenu, the owner.  Conkenu, the youngest, deemed she never slept, if her anecdotes of how good a warrior were depended on when they woke up, after hearing about her voyages to safe guard parcels and other trades that he wished he could have behind him before what he was approaching.  In the final morning, they departed with good news about paths and navigation.

  In a late night music bar of strangeness, two ordinary men sitting at a booth, gaining stares by strange creatures, smoked and plodded on an opened radio with handheld tools.  The two tool handlers were in Ski' Cima, the capital city of the planet Calcivorous, inhabited by the Atien race.  The room packed with more grey, old and long faces, with white hair, which had diverse devices and wires doubling the width of the tall and deteriorated bodies of the Atienians.  The creatures were modified all the same when it came to the senses found in the head, as they possessed eyepieces ranging from visors, to binoculars, reconstructed ears, and air purifiers over their mouths and nostrils.  Stucha and Prince Jefiea sat out in the crowd, with young faces with sprouts of facial hair all around in irregularity, dry lips, and dark black hair.  "They incessantly glimpse at us, Prince."  Stucha said taking his eyes covered with sunglasses off the radio to the crowd.  "No good objective will surface from this. Must they keep it so illuminated?  How much time do you have?"

  Prince Jefiea pulled up a flaccid grey sleeve and looked at his timer around his wrist on a thick heavy metal strap.  The patterns were dim, but tolerable to his eyes under the dark shaded sunglasses. "I have only several hours.  I wonder if we should appraise our connection to Earth by other means, like Icicil told us."

  "Can you do this?" Stucha put a hand on a modest wall-mounted monitor.  He pulled his fingertips off the top and scraped some dust off it.  In front of the men, a levitating flat projection in red tones started to delineate emblems.  A touch floated a pad above the original with new keys, and with undisciplined hands, more derivatives sprang up and in different colours designating their sublevel as they occupied space all around the user.  Stucha clutched some pads not a step away and modified them in improvement or in curiosity. After he ceased with revising them, they shifted to their original space with no immediate mind of the prince.  He threw his arms with their sleeves rolled up and smiled at his companion.  All of the created pads vanished and the original varied.  

  "You were reasonable when you counseled me about your theory concerning how to obtain a link to the other universes, but as it seemed to be ineffectual with the radio, it works surprisingly well here."  He said.  The two men, who were advised once a long time ago by Icicil to get to Earth had made another connection, but as implausible as to get a response or even an audience was; coincidences far too unanticipated had been on their sides for long that they were modestly called normal.

  Bulma Briefs was going to end the day after spending a late night surveying one of her father's inventions when she looked down the stairs, which she progressed half way up, to see a computer on that she thought she had exited.  She then realized it had been the sound of the computer booting that had caught her attention, and she concluded she rebooted the machine instead of a complete shut down.  The computer reached it's normal settings when Bulma sat down.  "I guess I could converse with some egg head males who spend normal sleeping hours on the computer and teach them a thing or two about what women doesn't know and does know."  She initialized a program to chat with other people.  Instantly, a chime announced a concealed window with a message.  "I don't remember being on this channel before.  I wonder what got the attention of 'Aqualung' to message 'Cross-eyed Mary'?"  

  "Is there anybody out there?"  She read and responded, "You bet.  You're talking to Cross-eyed Mary, a woman working at Capsule Corp."

  "What's a Capsule Corp.?"  

  "How can you own a computer living in the civilized world not know about the Capsule Corporation?  You are not tricking me.   Or do you think that a woman can't work here and see if I could describe it?"

  "What are you disclosing in reference to the Capsule Corporation?"  The message replied.

  "Listen, I happen to be the daughter of the owner of Capsule Corp., Dr. Briefs."  She pressed down on the buttons with force.  There was a pause before the next response, compared to the others that appeared too fast considering how much swifter a typist would have to be compared to Bulma to get a message up almost at once after she typed her own message.

  "I know the connection, you courted Yamacha."

  "How did you know that small detail with little such a small link to Capsule Corp., but not know about the company itself?  Anyways, I did date Yamacha, but now and for a long time before, I do not, thankfully."  She relaxed back into her restful padded chair with the extra long backing and ignoring the response to her last message, she concluded that one person could have known that, though doubtful at the time, it was fair less strange than the person actually on the other end.  She flipped open a secreted panel on the right arm rest of the chair, picked up the phone, and dialed.  It rang once that was swapped with the noise of hip-hop music and men having a good time  

  "Hello," Yamacha answered on his cellphone as the team partied on the bus, which included a lot of beer.  "What do you mean, stop chatting to you?  You called me.  No, I'm not at a strip joint.  Can you please calm down Bulma?"

  A teammate of his launched himself down on the seat next to Yamacha and offered him a chug of the wine he was holding.  The team had thrashed the winning streak record for every team in sports history.  "What did you say about a strip joint?  Maybe we should have one of the ladies give you a lap dance."

  Yamacha pulled the cellphone away from his ear, shook off the jolt, and held it at a safe distance as she kept her voice loud.  "No, I'm not at one.  The team just left one, half an hour ago and the strippers were brought onto the bus." He said with a nervous voice with tense chuckles and instinctively drew the cellphone back to the safe distance to avoid an earache but to have audible murmurs to know when to comeback to the call.  "I'm not on any chat lines, I'm on the bus.  I can't have a connection to you.  Oh, I can use the cellphone and I never would have thought about that, thanks.  No, it's not me."

  He turned the power off of the cellphone and put it away in his jacket.  The interrupting teammate from before, 'The Tickler' who played position of the pitcher, sat back with Yamacha, who took up the past offer and threw down a bit of the wine.  "What's the matter, and why haven't you got drunk over it, yet?  I'm keeping you company until you get smashed, tell me all about it."

  "Bulma called me and chewed me up."  Yamacha said.  "She thought that I had stalked her on a chat connection.  Not that I don't mind spending time with her, but I hope that she will understand that her decision to break our relationship up was also encountered with my own reasons."

  "Go on, what were the reasons for the breakup?"  The Tickler asked.

  "I believe that both her reasons and my reasons came to her high expectations of the first relationship of teenagers.  You know, find a person without a fault to the bone, and marry them and have children, without a single spat ever.  It took me a while to see this, and felt a heavy burden on me with these expectations that already had failed in the past.  Maybe she was more optimistic about the relationship working out than I was, so she must have been saddened that I did not feel the same way.  Her ideas were romantic, but not practical.  I had my own faults that ruined the relationship, like how I was afraid of not being able to be perfect and sometimes I was not enthusiastic about putting hard work into something so unimaginable to get."  Yamacha took a bottle of beer from the aisle.  He pet Pwar who sat on the headrest of his set.  "You know, I always wanted to know what type of folks my parents were.  Are they dead?  The answer either way wouldn't have distressed me.  It feels like I am missing something to make me whole.  I wonder if they would be good role models, despite the fact that they left me in a vacant house and a stranger had to bring me to an all-boys orphanage.  One day, I ran away with Pwar.  Until baseball, my life really didn't look so up."

  Bulma removed her hands from the keyboard.  

  "There," Bulma said relaxing back in her chair.  She had given the person some technical questions to answer, which was given back correctly with some questioning of why the line of questioning was important.  She had spent a moment typing out the problems that she had with the project she was troubleshooting.  "I can't risk him turning to some other source like he could have easily done with the other questions.  It could still be Yamacha.  He must have some help by some intelligence person to type this, but this problem will surely get him off the hook.  I will wait until the morning to see if there is any progress.  There is no way that Yamacha could have hired someone for this question.  I do think it's too hard to solve, but the correct solution will absolutely clear everything up."

  Before she could get up, the printer took on a task and the first page came.  The response already, even if it was incorrect, was proof enough by seeing how many pages were going to print off on the display on the printer.  Also, the use of the printer was unbelievable to her as the systems here were heavily protected.  She was amazed but also angry at the intrusion of her network. 

  "Look, buddy, you better not mess with the network of the Capsule Corporation.  You might be able to get away with it without punishment of the law, but you will not amaze me by getting away from my husband, because it's impossible.  You wouldn't even have a chance against my son."

  "And who is your son?"  The message read.

  "Trunks, the strongest non-adult around, the winner of the child's division of 25th World Martial Arts Tournament, and son of Vegeta."

  Prince Jefiea pushed a button, and the original pad disappeared.  He turned to Stucha.  "Vegeta's alive."

  "Under Freeza's control?"  He asked but he only shrugged his shoulders and walked to the exit of the bar.  "A good surprise is a good surprise, I have to say.  Now, we have to depart to Earth, although Icicil said to look for Earth, there is a principle to uphold with reimbursing Vegeta, for he's a Saiya-jin."

  "He has a son."  He added.

  "How many Saiya-jins survived the explosion?  Well, nobility has precedence, aptly, Prince?"  Stucha said and Prince Jefiea gave him a hard stare as he kept the door open.    "There is going to be a reunion, and if we can no more than locate non-noble Jefiea, then we will be set.  Without normal Jefiea, I suffer a bit being a lone, like he has being the only one like me, while you can only know how it feels to be different from one and all.  You can the matching affection that I have, but with various foundations, in which I can only take part comfort."

  "Is he still in the dark place to which we escaped?"  Prince Jefiea asked.  They walked down the dark alleyway, which was clean, but murky.  The air was hazardous, but caused no irritation of these men, who had more problems with their eyes exposed too much light.  

  "Or Earth is his setting?  But, he is still living, which all I can appreciate."    

  "Do you have no comfort from this?"

  "Sure."  They walked into a narrow side alley, and looked around for anyone coming.  A sickness emptied their fortitude with prompt acceleration, and the walls grew narrower.  Piece of the passage disappeared and the farther they saw, the most things broken apart and left darkness.  "Prince Jefiea, I hope we appear together in the same universe.  There has been an extensive period of farewell, that I didn't like."

Future Note: I have already written many chapters on Prince Jefiea, Jefiea, and Stucha in the story "The Tsufuru-jin Saga", which will be appearing soon on this site as soon as format and revise the chapters.  


	9. In The Wake of Snowy Forest

Chapter 7: In the Wake of SnowyForest

  The distance that could be progressed by automobile had vanished, thus Gneiss and Conkenu in their slim snug winter attire carried their white bags under their cloaks (Conkenu had a white cloak like the snow and Gneiss wore a green one) on their backs along a narrow path of the Snowy Forest.  The provisional food they needed on this excursion, which only researchers and tall-tale hermits have taken in the past, were in discs that were designed by the lost empire of Conkenu's, the Red Ribbon Army, to combat the capsule device of their rival company, the Capsule Corporations.  The Red Ribbon Army in its last effort it commenced on to devastate the monopoly held by Capsule Corp with its sole advantage on condensed technology that employed so fantastically proficient to inexplicably seize a one level living quarter into a thumb size pill.  The most vanguard compacting utensils the Red Ribbon Army discharged could stow in the palm size discs the proportion of a full meal in the variety of breakfast, lunch, and dinner with appropriate temperature and beverage including plastic glass, plate and utensils.  If released onto the market, it could have been surpassed by a Capsule Corp replica, but it never had come to that because of the discs could not store food that was pleasurable, but holding an opposite reaction.    

  The cool breeze carried the aroma of the needles on the trees, which was stronger and more pleasing to Conkenu than he imagined of the subtleness of the pine back at his estate that belonged to him now with the passing of his father, Icicil.  

  Icicil, a man who was slender all throughout his body, but never skeletal had passed away unknown to his children.  In his old age, he never exhausted his youthful appearance with retaining his toneless blonde hair and keeping his natural slight smile that might have hid any wrinkles, but his eyes brightened up to his death and not once stared or peered and had focus and direction.  On the bed, his body rested as if it could have been aroused up from silence, but too serene to be disturbed.  His servants looked upon him, and sometimes had conversations with in the room or about him.  

  A long trip from the mansion, the new master tracked behind his guardian with a rope connecting them, for he had no scheme of following her once when he walked with his head down to notice no footprints at the forefront and had startled to a point of not agreeing to one side farther until a lifeline span across them.

   And after the fright of being lost with only a compass and map in his small bag to get him back, he questioned her on the skill to depart without stirring the light snow; he felt well heeled at the mystery that was unraveling with her, and asked many more questions.  At this moment, after a long day of questioning and the sun going down, there was no exception to his curiosity.  "Why am I here?" Conkenu said quickening his wit and pace half a step after stiffness in the rope stroke.  "Do you know my journey?"

  "I'm positive the longer unmistakable explanation is in the letter your father wrote, but it must be thorny to not know every single detail that is revealed in the letter."  Gneiss said.  "If you like, you can describe your quest as preparing for any future tribulations, which time will only show.  What stolen glimpse you have of time can explain what you have to do now to better yourself.  It's a sacrifice as you prefer one decision over another and wish your path helps others."

  "Did I hear something?" Conkenu said taking a look around the snow covered trees.  "I think someone said, they don't know."

  Gneiss drew back the green wool hood to expose her ears to the environment.  The line did not halt, but slowed down to absorb more than the birdcalls and fluttering wings of black birds, hawks and eagles.  They had entered a new part of the forest; the trees were not dense, but replaced by rock formations of boulders, hills, and worn down faces from the long ages the plundering of the waterfalls that came from rivulets and rested in ponds or more brooks.  The place was more warm, but lacking in lively color.      

  Without a question to answer, Gneiss felt comfortable in imparting an answer.  "I haven't changed from my youth, but I blanket the former early girl with the experiences of the years.  I would have to say, I try to protect people from spoiling what I once was to take succor in bringing back what I once was."

  Conkenu had the question: "What were you like when you were my age?"

  "Every bit like you, I was.  I idled in the art of music taking up the flute and singing as a young girl like you with your painting.  And together, we follow in our mothers' interests.  Snowda, your mother, reminded me of my mother; she was caring and saw me very much like a daughter she would have loved to raise.  She taught me songs and stories to give to you, when you were uneasy or scared.  If you would tolerate it, I would enjoy performing a song I wrote in my youth about the place I lived.  It is the best medium I have for nature." Gneiss said.  She smiled and tied the rope to her hand.  In her open voice, she sung a high seamless octave that was loud without abstracting the serenity of her voice.  After fishing her flute out of her pocket, she went into a song, which underscored the landscape with its more peaceful qualities, but not to take for granted the risk she sensed, and the forest responded in low growing moans:

"My fondness of the forever forest

In comfort, I amble away

When many go in heavy steps

I alone call this home if I may

Call upon the within

Restoration is wearing thin

The water will fill my hourglass

And my time would persist

Meaning of the stones

Gives me a place to be midst"

  The shadows extended in the forest as the gloomy grey clouds deterred the sun.  Conkenu hiked closer to Gneiss who played more on her flute causing echoes of moans, and the rope between them crawled along the ground behind them.  He set his white hood over his hair that did succumb to his hair like a tissue on the bristles of an uncared for paintbrush that had bright yellow paint ubiquitously clustering and dividing the bristles.  The fresh snow falling spiraled with lightness and he scarcely saw them higher than the tallest trees with their ends hard to see in the growing mist.  

  "Stop it, you're hurting me?"  A deep tone bellowed from above.

  Conkenu ineptly crawled directly behind Gneiss.  She grasped him and took off from the enclosure to behind a tree.  Then she scaled up a tree with the nimbleness a water bug in its element with Conkenu in her arms and without disturbing the snow on the long bulky branches.  Half way up, she stopped with Conkenu between her and the tree, and veiled herself in her green cloak.  "My cloak will blend with the snow."  She whispered into his ears.  

  "Gneiss…" he curiously posed that she interrupted.

  "Not now," she responded.  The green misplacement bounded over to infect the next tree.  It then disappeared.  Conkenu had rolled Gneiss over and held her back to the tree.   "What are you thinking Conkenu?"

 With her legs bent, they buried themselves within Conkenu's cape.  There was no response, as they resided silently in an uncomfortable position to heed to the gush of wind below them.  

  "I'm not here to hurt you."  Piccolo shouted unpersuasively.  The threat flew around the tree, in his tall humanoid body in shape with a reptilian skin covering of green.  On his limbs, his muscles were amplified with pink strings and borders.  He dressed in purple, with brown shoes.  And under his shoulder pad pinned down his long white cape, which alerted the two snowbound travelers with beats and thrashes in the wind, and a white tunic with a purple dome.  Not that they saw that; if they would have been able to see the real searcher, then they would have held no surprise their shock at his bald head, demonic eyes, and antennas over his broad hairless brows.  "Reveal yourself to me!"

  Under the disguise, the fear of Conkenu manifested in thin lines of tears, which Gneiss could not handle watching so close to the one who she had to protect imperiled himself for reasons she could not have guessed.  Conkenu felt her hand come off from around his shoulder, and disappear in front of him.  The flute appear in her hand, and with a look into her eyes, he knew what he had to do.  She placed the flute up to her lips with her breath encircling the flute and muddling the metal.  Her grasp released on him, and she started playing with the fiend two meters away from her.  The beautiful mournful song pierced in Piccolo's long cavernous pointed ears, and he twisted and turned viciously with his drawn out clawed hands over his ears.  

  Conkenu, who was pushed off from Gneiss almost hit Piccolo's large feet, but missed.  He descended fast save from the bottom branches that extended out grandly.  He tumbled once on the stretched spike limbs, and cut his face many times.  In heaviness and hurt from the lofty fall, he looked up with terror at the roaring beast whose snarls did not prohibit the sound of the music that was an awful sight to see such reaction to a pleasing song.  On the ground, he questioned to stay with his eyes and ears in dismay, but his ears prevailing with hope.  The monster was succumbing, which then filled him with pleasure, but he knew this was a fleeting chance, so rolling over he got up with a struggle and ran.  

  In his flight, he lost track of time.  He had not stopped yet, but slowed down even with no intuition of closing to safety for the root that he developed a hobble in his right leg.  No other sense but pain apart from some sight in the night registered with him.  He jumped over some bushes, and discovered the land was not equal on the other side from what side he jumped; the land was far below from what he launched from in his tiredness in his mind and strength; and he felt like he was sinking into the ground with no wit left in his sight.  The illusion revoked with the searing pain ignited in his right ankle.  He collapsed forward and felt the shallow icy water of a long rivulet.  

  He pushed himself up with his arms and suffered cuts and bruises on the offhand rocks of the bottom with a screech.  The water calmed down and flowed in silence, in constancy that no longer altered the onlooker's face anymore in kindliness.  No, the benevolence of falsehood straightened to give him a glare on a portion of his pain, and his body responded to his circumstance to give him palpable vision.  He shook his head and looked with absorbed eyes to see cuts from cheek to cheek, on his forehead, and water heading to the heights of his round face trickling to the bitter rivulet with the stigma of blood mixing with it.  He backed away from his sight.  

  _"Is my quest to stop the demon of these woods?"  He thought with his back to the jagged face of the cliff three meters away from water.  On his front, he scaled the rocks of the ground to enter a large cave and rested near the mouth.  The smell was horrible; it was more horrible than the rustle of the water.  His thoughts of the demon developed to Gneiss, who epitomized splendor against the ghastly hobgoblin in a stance of antagonism.  _"Had I run when I should have stayed?  I am too little to face that monster!  Why am I here, my father should be here, not me or Gneiss.  My father sends me, coward.  Could he send some son, not me?  Not me."__

Buzzing surrounding him, and he traced the smell he paid little attention to once entering the cave.  A dead eagle with flies set out to pester him.  He backed away and swung them making his way out of the cave until a stroke in the wind perked his recently practical sense.  _"Gneiss has failed, and again she would fail if I get caught.  I must go into the cave."_

  He rolled into the cave then crawled into the shadows, with the smell coming behind him; he only had touch to guide him in the dirty cavern that did not give him much to predict.  _"I believe nothing would want to live in this cold hole.  Its walls are burnt black."_

  And he continued on to conclude aloofness to what roamed outside to bring out a lantern.  The walls indeed were black, and the cave steeped down.  Ahead of the wonderer, a grimy oval metal door with boulders at the base came into view.  The height was about two meters.  His tension to what waited behind the door vanished with his hunger increasing.  He took out the compressed meal in his pack and placed it in his hand.  He dug up an idea to gain access to the building.

  The boulders at the base were too heavy for him in even a pleasant condition to remove, but with vigilant management of the discs, he had a way to use them more than just for food.  The vital operation to this is that he did not lose the disc's food no matter the awful taste of the contents that sprung out from it, and that was the key; the decompression of the metal container that enclosed the food would have the force to push the rocks away from the base.  The plan was set, and with the lamp on a natural ledge on the side, he looked for the best place to put the first explosion.  _"This door looks unused.  Behind the rocks, on the door, there is dust, and dust has not been falling in this cave other than my own kick ups from the floor.  I could really use any items in there, and this chore will keep me busy until I dry.  There, that should do it."_

  The disc was placed between the two larges rocks; they themselves did not come up to Conkenu's knees.  He pressed a button in the centre of the disc and rolled away since he had no confidence yet in his legs.  The success was well ahead of his anticipation.  All of the boulders along the bottom width of the door, which was no more than arm's length to Conkenu, were expelled from the door.  He ate his meal in satisfaction of his achievement then pulling on his bag, he walked to the door.  It had a wheel at the centre, which he reached up and turned counter clock wise and pushed.  His plan having worked did encumber him from entering the door, for the stones could have substituted for steps to reach the door easier and did not keep him from opening the astonishingly weightless door.  The room pass the door was clean and lighted, with the white floors were made from smooth material.  The whole room was white except for a large computer to the left of the door taking up the whole wall.  Conkenu tripped in and looked around.  The floor was easy on his hands, and it was warm with the rest of the room.  The air was clean and he closed his eyes to doze off in comfort.  

  He was uneasily swayed out of sleep, and when he opened his eyes, a woman with short blue hair shook him looking at him with worry.  She was shocked at the glimpse of his green right eye and brown left eye, but she quickly disregarded that and breathed a sight of relief, and after his own jump, he felt the same way for the moment, because in an unlikely pair, she was next to the demon of his fleeting journey, Piccolo, who held his arms crossed at his chest and stood behind Bulma glaring down.  Conkenu pounced to his bad legs, and backed up.  Bulma looked where his eyes were riveted.  "I told you to leave before I woke him."  She yelled at Piccolo.  Her attention attracted back to Conkenu who stepped backwards slowly and let out long breaths of anger and soreness.  With a smile, Bulma had a reached out hand and approached Conkenu allowing him to out pace her.  When Conkenu got to the middle of the room, a circle of delicate blue came down from the ceiling and surrounded him in the focus.  Bulma stood amazed standing back from the growing intensity of the cobalt.  And around Conkenu's eyes released tension of a burden.  He looked at the two on watchers.  "Without much coincidence I do not doubt."

  The blue light disappeared along with Conkenu.  

----------------------

  Bulma had acquired the location of the message from which the mysterious computer communicator was transmitted.  She fixed a device to locate this place closer after seeing that it was in an isolated area.  When she had decided to bring Vegeta along with her, he refused and she decided finally not to take Vegeta.  By the time she had convinced herself she no longer wanted Vegeta to come, she arrived at the cliff of Snowy Forest to find Piccolo who was looking for someone.  

  She decided that long ago, she had really wanted Piccolo to come with her, and she guided Piccolo down the cave, by this time, Conkenu had been asleep for a while.  The answer both of them looking for only posed more questions.  

--------------------

  "I knew I should have brought Vegeta!  Why didn't you catch him?"  Bulma shouted at Piccolo who looked at the expertise that had constructed this room.  Bulma was engaged in complaining, but still found herself tied up with connecting the computer in the room with the Capsule Corporation server.  "I wonder where that kid went off to?  He seemed to know that he was going to disappear.  He sure phrased it in a weird way.  Was that the other person you were looking for?"

  "Yes," Piccolo said.  He closed his eyes for a while following an unsolicited reminiscence of the noise that Gneiss played.  "In fact, I did not detain the other wonderer.  It was a woman, very agile on her feet.  I'm going out to the look out and see if I can't detect the other with out getting to close."

-------------

  Conkenu stood in a blue funnel encased in front with darkness.  He did not whimper, for he had more confidence in what Gneiss saw in Icicil.  He did not feel the pain he had before appearing here, or in just a likely a case, before everything else disappearing.  He rested back and continued with his sleep.  

  He woke up in his father's dojo, but there were no stairs where they should have been.  The grey mats smelled clean like in the basement, and other than the stairway, he could not have told the difference other than doubt that filled his mind.  He had only been in jeopardy from when he could not have recalled but not long enough to be where he would have thought if the stairs remained the same.  He got up with ease, and recognized a refreshing liveliness he had never thought he could have experienced again, which felt like watching the fish swim in the pond during the summer time with Gneiss singing a little ditty about not any fish, but the ones in the pond, that he fantasized about bringing them back to their tropical pool. 

  He looked once more along the room, and saw sliding doors, glass walls, what he remembered from the first room of where his father trained.  The ceiling was the same colour, white.  The next difference he noticed was there were no lights to be found anywhere.  Conkenu could not determine the source of the brightness, and indeed, it was also brighter than the dojo in his mansion.  

  "Hello," a passive voice said, "what else I can do to help you?"

  Conkenu had no luck with the voice either as with the location of the illumination.  "I don't know?"

  "I can help you with that."  The voice replied.  "Do you wish to have some rational requests to what I can do for you?"

  "Yes, please."  Conkenu sat down to the ground but he was interrupted when he felt a chair with no armrests underneath him he did not notice.  

  "I could compile the best guide for you using a thorough survey of your needs."  The voice stated.  "Would you like that?"

  "Who is my best guide?"  He asked rubbing his hair and putting down his forearm on an armrest he did not notice.

  "Your best guide is a compilation of what is found in you."  The voice responded.  

  "I would like that."  


	10. Eyes Wide Open

Chapter 8: Eyes Wide Open

  A young boy with revitalized body covered in a sweat sopping soft gray ensemble rested his rowdy blonde hair against the wall of a light gray padded room that had a facade of what his father's dojo looked like to the best of his knowledge, but without an exit up to where he would have spent most of his time if it was his real house. At least from the room, the resemblance was mostly true. He rested to catch his breath; Conkenu had followed the light silhouettes of feet and hands that appeared along the room progressing him to move, sometimes in vain from the distance between the transition be it a right foot outline from a hand shape far from the last position he could not have reached even leaping from a good position after a scuttle to aim to match the shape with a foot or a hand to extinguish the faraway light.  This exercise, to keep him busy until his trainer configured to his requirements, was causing him to stumble a lot and at the end the disorder of off-balanced flips, unplanned rolls, flat-out trips to slides, which he found helped close the gap between the far waypoints, and silly swirls causing much dizziness plus tripping leg crossings to the end of slipping, swiveling, or skipping into the wall.  The pain had a short teaching period then vanished, but this did not keep Conkenu from getting tired.  

  He was not sure of what time had pasted, but he thought much about the question of his fate here and so far, if not a bit irritating, he found the situation mind consuming before he got any more answers with the voice when ever called upon did speak of the need to preserve resources.  The voice did however respond to Conkenu's need for solid food, though did remind him that his body was assured proper keeping.  

  After a nap, a recent ordinary occurred for him now from once having waked up to trees; there across the room, a stranger cloaked in white appeared trailing the path of the outlines with elegance moving to the next position like the path and the new arrival acquiesced as one.  

  "Good time," she spoke through the untarnished silver mask that covered her whole face with the cold features of a woman with closed eyes.  In a reserved bow, her short golden hair brushed along the thin precious metal.  Conkenu's ears, under his straw hair, packed with the humming of the woman's voice under the mask.  "I am to you representing your forthcoming in pinnacle and time."  She kneeled above him, and put her index finger on his chest.  "You have a lot on your chest.  How may I help you?"

  He never knew what he would see after the wait.  A quick scan of her he took starting at her white laced boots that bloomed up her bare pallid skin up to her knees, then to the Spartan white gown resting on her shoulders wrapped around her collar and with a loose fit on the skin, it hid the rest of her with no overlaps and apart from the shin.  But her mask, which attracted him the most with an unremitting undercurrent making him restless coming on to him with his stares, with the value of shock bent into the metal that a little embroidery of a somber face reflected back the extensive features of those who looked upon it with awe to enthrall the over looker by means of a new feeling.  Not a feeling of the known, but like a taste of a foreign dish to the eater who desires in vain to put what they know to describe the essence.  That was the feeling of meeting with Piccolo, this being did have that intimacy of the room they met; in a different way, Conkenu saw the room as his place having a difference, and saw this woman as a difference but a person with who he wish to be.  

  "I am yours, Halcyone" she proclaimed standing up bow before him again this time with a deeper slump drawing on bent knees.  In a reserved shift, he used the padded wall to get up without taking an eye off her, and every budge back calmed his heavy breathing.  "Follow me," and she turned around and stepped onto the arena and where her set, a red stain disbursed around her foot on the gray floor, "if you want to leave here.  The dangers outside, I have seen on my face once you came, and I could not in daze or cruelty that tried to keep ones apart to let you leave artlessly.  In self promise, I will win over the rough wind raging against you in your path, if you permit it.  Please now, fill in my feet as I move, and if you fit them one hundred times more, then I will wish you well."

  "What? Uh, I can't be here too long.  Excuse me, I'm Conkenu." He said and walked up to the arena to replace the print of Halcyone who had paced once more.  On one foot, she bounded a two meters to land on the next foot, but Conkenu focused on the second mark of a stride that was too far for a step, so he hopped to the next stain and tweaked his position to remain balanced.  "I have things to do outside.  It's about fighting, I think."

  "And who are you protecting out there?"  She asked to get more direction from him, but he stood there in timidity thinking about who was out there, in the world he knew every little about, to protect when he remembered he needed safety from Gneiss and freshly the assistance of Kita, who admittedly rescued him for the danger she put onto him, which had him hope for Halcyone to leave with him.

  "_Maybe that is my goal," he thought and smiled, "_to bring Halcyone from the inside out.  She's so very much stronger, and I couldn't replace the lend her hand on the outside."__

  "Have you decided what to do?" She asked in the most cheer for voice that could escape the mask.  "You must know for sure, Conkenu!" She shook her head, and then dropped it down in sorrow.  "I failed to mention that time can seem so much longer here, if it is not a reflection of my own seclusion.  But, you don't have to worry about time, and what you want to do in your time here."

  "I want to leave here with you to do more with your help, if you want to go."

  "That would be fine," she said, "but you are the first to come here, and I do not know what happens to me after you leave.  The best you can complete of your decision is to become better than me."

------------------

  From the great halls of a repair facility at the capsule corporation, a mechanic worked late pass midnight.  Below a stripped car a man rolled under the complex perverse metal on a roller board with his blue boiler suit only showing their true colour of the garment from the knees down, but the true colour of the mechanic all above the indistinctive contour giving way to smeared on black grime that veiled his face, his name tag that spelt Trent, and all over his bare hands.  His right hand especially with a deep gash was covered in black with blood thickly bobbling out behind the muddle.  He stood up and brushing off his hat that he wore backwards on the car.  After putting it on his shaved head that looked like a hill in the desert plagued with locus, Trent moved his body that he treated like he fixed a car, to be powerful but not ostentatious with brawn to keep it systematic.  

  A walk by the supervisor's window detained the notice of the boss, Daniel, a woman tomboy who attracted such words as petit, small, and bitch even if she detested it.  She left her chair but missed him as soon as she left her office.  

  In a small washroom, Trent washed his hands and wrapped his wounded hand.  From the mirror, he could see Daniel.  "Didn't I tell you to leave?  And I also told you to get rid of that Red Army hat."  

  Trent felt a vibration in his hip pocket, and he undid the sullied zipper, and turned off his pager.  "I think I should be heading off now."  He stated taking off his hat to tease her clout, and adjusted his hat so the visor faced back.  

  Across the capsule corps' domain, on the edge of a quite private well-paved road, the capsule corp headquarters with a white low fence, green low firm grass lawn, and a space craft landing site with the capacity to construct an environment inside the vessel to contain many folds the Earth's own gravity used by some of the strongest fighters in existence, depicted a normal family, the Briefs, owners of the company that has no competitors, the most capital, and scientific research centre in the normal universe.  This family yelled, broke objects to relief, or more like show, their rage ranging from damages to plates to the biggest mountains on Earth, but with no variation in their intensity of rage.  This emotionally distressing life was what families wanted, and it wouldn't be so distressing, but the Briefs did have a mass murdering martyr, who every enlighten enemy feared, had not beaten the complexities of the microwave.  This short fellow, named Vegeta, and answered to Prince Vegeta, moved around the hardwood flooring of the building in the dawn; and in his hands supported by his rippling muscles, the same that helped him killed thousands upon thousands of people, held a television dinner, because though dogs will grow old and tired with rounded incisors, they still like to bite.

  Down in the basement, Vegeta's blue haired brilliant mate, Bulma, sat at the computer silently watching on a distorted black and white reception, two figures steaming around the room, one after the other, in bows and angles.  "Could the larger body be the person who Piccolo told me about who followed the boy?"  Bulma inquired of herself.  The coincidence of Piccolo and Bulma's goal left her with a focus she could not shake or control, like nail biting, she had found herself more drawn to the unknown with an increase of her own awareness of single-mindedness during the day of substandard supervision of the new model car to be released in the morning.  She glared at the screen that had a visual effect like being seen through a water fall.  "I know that he's a boy around under Trunks' age, and a very decisive fighter, but what journey of valor instigated him to undergo all that physical abuse?"  She chewed on the end of a pencil, and the footsteps coming from behind her prompted her to look around to her husband with his undeviating stare under his black bushy eye brows as he stood uptight in his blues boxers.  "Vegeta, what do you think is the most important inspiration of a warrior?"

  Vegeta smiled and handed Bulma the tray of food.  "You don't like serving me food at this time of night, and I don't like having it anyway but my own.  I think we can come to some human agreement; a compromise of solutions, to benefit both of us."

  On a table full of food, Vegeta sat in the concentrated area, but nearby Bulma, who sat across from him, had too much for her.  "Now that I have filled my side of the compromise, I want you to give me your insights of warriors.  This individual, he is young and traveled with what I believe to be his mother.  Now…"

  "Fascinating," Vegeta interrupted and sipped some water.  "I don't recall Goku's wife promoting training from Gohan, unless you call training having your head caught in a book."

  "What does that have to do with motivations of a warrior?"

  "To understand the main motivation of a warrior, I will need familiarity with others around him."  Vegeta said.  "This child, he is not the first child.  Being accompanied by his mother suggests that she has intimacy with protecting a child, a former child.  The mother protected her earliest offspring, fervently, without mistake, and the father had no input.  This voyage may be considered to be provoked by the mother, and not the child who accompanies this woman.  I propose you get more information on the mother from the account of the first born son.  This mother didn't want a son of hers to be like his father, but this passage to bring her next son is to replace the father, the missing father."

  "Okay, Mr. Psychology," Bulma laughed, "I'm not going to even find this first born son, but I'll pretend that he exists and I found him.  It's impossible; I might as well as know more about him right now than he knows of his mother."

  "Go ahead and criticize."  Vegeta snarled.  "I'm a bigger help than you think."

  "Who you are a bigger help than?" Bulma pushed her chair back and walked away.

  "I'm giving you the motive of this young warrior, and you need a warrior's insight."  Vegeta said.  Bulma turned around to see Vegeta's smile.  "I'm a bigger help than Yamacha.  He would be clueless on this subject."

  Bulma shook her head.  "He's a jerk, but I pity him for his up bringing with no one but his friend, a cat.  Everyone has abandoned him, but he risked his life in confronting you to try to save a world of people who never supported him.  

  I know you had it hard also, so you are also entitled to be a jerk sometimes.  You came to Earth to get the power to defend Freeza, but unlike Yamacha who tried to defend you, I wonder if you wanted to liberate the universe from Freeza or just replace him."

  Outside on the sidewalk under the glow of the Capsule Corp street lights, Trent hung up the receiver on the pay phone and backed up two steps.  It was warm underneath his black leather jacket.  In a moment of liveliness, he kicked over a garbage can spilling over the yard to the side of a research laboratory.  

  "What are you doing?"  A woman's voice from behind him yelled.  Behind him, in the middle of the Capsule Corp estate, a circle was formed of multicolored stone, and hemmed in four curved lines of bushes that coupled to make entrances to one of the four sections of Capsule Corp; the northeast had marketing and headquarters, the northwest had research and development, the southeast was manufacturing, and the southwest was for shipping and receiving.  There in the center, Bulma stood with her hands collapsed in one another, and her brown overcoat flapped like a flag in the wind.  She looked across the shivering bushes, to Trent who turned around slowly.  "Trent, it's you.  Do you need someone to talk to?"

  They sat at a small round stone table with a shimmering chess board, which projected three dimensional pieces on the board.  "You always knew my stance," Trent said as he took her white queen off the scarily occupied board, "that I don't like Capsule Corp one bit after the collapse of its only rival.  The defeat was good for this company, while capturing all the jobless employees of the Red Ribbon Army like me and gaining your new found wealth, but it's a shame that technology is only going to go as far in development as you want it.  You're stifling us."

  "But you, you don't without.  I wonder why you didn't join the winning side in the first place, Mr. Papermate."  Bulma announced.  She tapped her fingernails on the surface of the table and looked into the board.  "You have nothing to withhold right?"

  "I have never withheld anything from you."  Trent observed Bulma winning the game and smiling.  "I haven't lied when I told my story during my interview or any other time you asked.  One day in high school when I was being bullied, a person had put a note on my back that told me to quit school, join the Red Ribbon Army, and then get hired by Capsule Corp.  Since then I've had unexplained good fortune.  I'm a little frustrated."

  "I would be too, if I had to follow a determined path."  Bulma said.  "I would say that after seeing your talent in mechanics, that I was required to hire you, though my father didn't agree."

  "Was hiring me your first defiance of Dr. Briefs?  I am speaking on a business term, and not personal."

  "My father never separated a personal decision from a business one; so I will have to answer no.  Dating Yamacha was the first mistake according to my father, and the second according to me.

  But your story always confuses me, Trent.  Don't you feel trapped with knowing most of your life has been resolved without your input?"

  The tussling of leafs pealed under and over the fleeting wind.  At last silence was gained in the circle that had no dust on the surface or hidden away in the slits between the stone.  In a place constructed in stone, where the nucleus smelled of life, a slice would be lost as Trent stood up and walked to the edge.  Bulma stood up watching her shoes until her legs straighten under the common weight that had kept her there as they talked; common because she had always been the first one up under her business schedule, though she had in the past of busy days tried her best to delay the require meeting with business types or her companionship of adventurers to keep still under the plum tree to hear from her gamble.  With the other view now her own, she knew that he held something more important than the quick excuses she gave to him once she got eye contact.  At this time of perspective, she didn't expect or want this contact.  In the twist of his body, she stared at him with eyes wide open.

  "I have been patient to get out of the known revealed to me, and you have set me free tonight.  Being forced to be alive and not live, until now, thanks to you."  Trent reached above him on the outreaching arm of the tree planted in the centre, where he harvested a plum.  "From the script, the ending line of the other man's story for me, I will past something on to you that I couldn't define.  I hope the call goes through this time."

  Trent walked over to the phone, and dialed.  He dropped the phone, and walked away.

  Bulma ran out of the circle, but in a look around, she did not find Trent.  For one reason, in a move of instinct, she picked up the suspended receiver.  "Hello?" 


End file.
